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SYLLABUS OF PSYCHOLOGY 



FOR USE IN 



NORMAL SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES 



W. A. CLARK, PH. D. 

Professor of Psychology and Education in the Missouri State Normal School 

at Kirksville 



Copyright 1913 by W. A. Clark 



PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR 

1913 






©CI.A34749 



A Syllabus of Psychology 3 

PREFACE 

While this Syllabus is printed for use in the author's own classes, 
where in the conduct of the class exercises its philosophical presupposi- 
tions may be ignored or only incidentally stated as the exigencies of the 
• discussions appear to demand, respect for the critical general reader, into 
whose hands it may by chance come, necessitates a brief fore-word of 
explanation. 

The author regards Psychology as a '^natural science", concerned 
with the description and explanation of a characteristic body of phe- 
nomena. He accepts the spirit and method of the ^'New Psychology'', 
without disparaging the results of observation and constructive thinking 
in the past. While in his philosophical attitude he would probably find 
his place with the monistic idealists, as a teacher of elementary General 
Psychology his standpoint is that of a naive dualism, accepting unques- 
tioned for the purposes of scientific study the existence of an external 
world that may be sensed through the body mechanism and known in the 
conscious individual life. It is thought that each modern science may 
rightfully transform reality for its own purposes, leaving to the meta- 
physician the justification of all of its ontological and epistemological 
assumptions and postulates. Consequently, no question is raised as 
to the substantial nature of the human soul, either to insist that it is 
''nothing but a stream of mental processes" or a static entity with ca- 
pacities, or ''faculties", for various forms of functioning. Introspective 
analysis, as the immediate critical study of personal experiences during 
their continuance, is accepted as the ultimate source of all scientific 
knowledge of psychic life. Consciousness is so defined that the "subject- 
object problem", the Banquo's ghost of psychological study, is not per- 
mitted to vitiate all examination of mental facts as such. Psychological 
experiments are viewed as introspective observations under artificially 
controlled conditions; and an effort is made to distinguish between bio- 
logical and psychological study of the living human organism. 

The details of matter and method in this synoptic outline have been 
determined largely by two important considerations ; first, the intellectual 
status and needs of the students for whose use it has been specifically 
prepared; and second, a well-defined theory as to the purpose of all in- 
struction in elementary General Psychology, especially for students in 
State Normal Schools. In the State Normal School at Kirksville this 
course is open to students of the grade of the Freshman and Sophomore 
years of college study, and presupposes a fair knowledge of the elements 
of the physical and biological sc iences with some acquaintance with 
modern laboratory work. Starting with the student's general knowledge 



4 A Syllabus of Psychology 

of the facts of his own mind, his body, and his relation to his physical and 
spiritual environment, it seeks to lead him in a critical study of the facts 
of his own conscious life, without any radical reconstruction of his point 
of view. The order of study is the conventional one — ^'knowing", 
"feeling", "willing"; and only the principal subjects are considered, thus 
laying in outline a foundation for subsequent studies in the same field. 
As to the second consideration, the principal purpose of this course is to 
give to the student such a knowledge of himself and of the rational con- 
trol of his own experiences as will secure for him integrity of character 
and efficiency in the affairs of his daily life. His acquaintance with the 
technical terms of his science and its logically outlined system is held to 
be secondary to this character-forming result in his own personal being. 
It is to this end that Part III has been differentiated from the analysis 
of experience in Part II and has been made a constructive study in "the 
making of a life". Even for Normal School students, for whom Psy- 
chology is too often treated as a sort of propaedeutic to Pedagogy, the 
essential fact sought to be reahzed by the instruction is a well-knit man- 
hood and womanhood through a clear knowledge of self. 

The "directions for recording results in experimental introspective 
observation", given on page 6, provide for more comprehensive "labor- 
atory work" than the author has himself found feasible, or desirable, in 
an introductory course. They are printed here in this full form to indi- 
cate to his students the spirit and attitude of thoroughness in such work 
which, he holds to be essential in more advanced study, if Psychology 
would justify its claim to a place among modern positive sciences. In 
the very hmited experimentation employed in his own classes much sim- 
pler forms of expressing results are found adequate. Experimenting 
in the beginning study in the sciences in general is for illustration and 
personal corroboration, not for discovery or research; what the beginner 
in Psychology does with "Weber's -Law" is analogous to what the be- 
ginner in Physics does with his Atwood's Machine Avith the "Laws of 
Falling Bodies", and in neither case should he take the scientific validity 
of his work too seriously. It would be a mistake, however, to conclude 
that the author undervalues direct critical study of mental facts under 
controlled conditions even by beginners; the fact simply is that long ex- 
perience as a teacher of beginners in this science has made his method 
more pedagogical, if less logical. 

The list of "Questions and Problems" given at the close of the 
Syllabus is appended, somewhat artificially, as a provocative of inde- 
pendent thought. There is no synthetic order in them, and they are 
not intended for formal answering, seriatim or otherwise. The earnest, 
ambitious student is encouraged to attack such of them as interest him. 
Some are easily within his proper field, while others are far out on the 



A Syllabus of Psychology 5 

border line of metaphysical speculation. The value of some of them for 
students of this grade is to be found in their suggestions of other worlds 
of human interest, not in their contribution to a mapping out of the one 
in which they already somewhat comfortably dwell. 

The "references" for library study at the close of the various sections 
will doubtless appear to be needlessly full and to be lacking in equal 
authoritativeness, but they have their justification in local conditions. 
The economic use of a reference library by large classes necessitates many 
references, even to the point of duplication; the books named here are 
those readily accessible in our own school library, for obvious reasons 
limited to the English language. In the choice of references no attempt 
has been made to corroborate narrowly the dogmatic statements of the 
Syllabus, rather it has been the aim to throw a sidelight on the matter 
from diverse points of view. 

The Index is added to facilitate the use of the little book in subse- 
quent study. It is regretted that the increased size of this Syllabus 
has made it necessary to abandon the blank righthand pages found so 
valuable for important classroom memoranda; it is urged that the student 
keep a concise record of his own growing thought during the daily work 
of the class. 

W. A. Clark. 
Missouri State Normal School at Kirksville, May 23, 1913. 



6 A Syllabus of Psychology 

Directions for Recording Results in Experimental 
Introspective Observation 

The record should include four points: (1) the object of the experi- 
ment, (2) the apparatus employed, (3) the method of controlling the 
phenomena, and (4) introspective memoranda of facts of consciousness. 
To these in many cases a fifth point, always under a separate heading, 
should be added, a general remark upon the success of the experiment. 

In stating the object of the experiment, while it is well to define it 
as clearly as possible, the student should avoid a bias in favor of a preju- 
diced conclusion. It is better to propose 'Ho examine", 'Ho explore", 
'Ho test", "to discover", etc., thai), "to prove", "to show", "to fix", 
etc. 

The apparatus should be described with reference to its special 
function in the present experiment; a drawing is often desirable. Let 
the description include all of the material conditions of controlling the 
mental processes that are not noted as purely a matter of "method" 
under the third heading. 

The method should be described as the control of the life process 
from without. It is limited to the physiological side of the experiment; 
.and when an assistant is employed in the experimenting, the account 
is largely of what he does, learned from him subsequent to the experi- 
ment. No introspective facts or theorizings should be given under this 
head, the aim being merely to show how the conditions of the experience 
were controlled. 

The introspective memoranda are designed to be a transcript of the 
processes of the experience as revealed in consciousness and reviewed in 
memory as soon after as possible. This is the heart of the record, and 
no pains should be spared to make it an honest exhibit of the facts. Bear 
in mind that it is to be an unbiased account of what actualty happens, 
ivithout theory or self-stultification. Self-observation under artificially 
controUed conditions is the essential method of .modern Psychology, and 
it requires earnest effort and much practice to use it successfull}^ Do 
not be too solicitous for fullness of your account; one or two facts clearly 
and indubitably perceived are far better than a lengthy list of what you 
think ought to be perceived. 

Under the fifth heading may be given explanations, theoretical 
conclusions, and other matters that properly find no place in the succinct 
record of the experiment under the first four headings. This can be 
A\ritten up at any time after the experiment, while it is very desirable 
that the "introspective memoranda" should be made immediately after 
the experiment. 



A Syllabus of Psychology 7 

ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS 

GENERAL INTRODUCTION 

Definition of Psychology 9 

Forms of definition 
Psychology a true science 
The subject matter 

Method of Psychology 13 

Nature of psychological analysis 

Nature and* validity of introspection 

Some valuable auxiliary methods 

Function and form of psychological experiments 

Field of Psychology 22 

General delimitation 
Relations to allied sciences 
Subdivisions of the science 

ANALYSIS OF EXPERIENCE 

General character of an experience 27 

An experience defined 

The procession of experiences 

Relation of mind to body 

Three phases of an experience distinguished 

Cognition: the knowing aspect of experience 34 

Nature of cognitive growth 

A conscious object-seeking activity 
What ''knowledge is 
Process of knowing an external object 
Three aspects of cognition distinguished 

Presentative cognition 37 

Sensation: Subjective aspect of presentative cognition 

What sensations are 

Kinds of sensations 

Threshold of sensation 

Quantity of sensations 

Localizing sensations in the body structure 

Centrally aroused sensations 
Perception: objective aspective of presentative cognition 

Distinguished from sensation 

The "outer world" of perception 

Perception a constructive process 

Illusory perceptions 



8 A Syllabus of Psychology 

Representative cognition .*. .51 

Distinguished from presentative cognition 

What a memory experience is 

Four elements of a memory 

Retention, or ''liability to recall'^ 
Recalling, or reviving a past experience 
Recognition, or accepting a revived experience as such 
LocaKzing, or placing the experience in ''the past" 
Elaborative cognition 58 

Relation of elaboration to acquisition 

Apperception 

Conception 

Imagination 

Judgment 

Reasoning 

Knowledge as achievement and as self 

Affection : the feeling aspect of experience 73 

Affection in general 

Nature of affection 

Relation of "pleasantness" and "unpleasantness" to 
metabolic body processes 

Distinction of "ideational" and "sensuous" feelings 

"James-Lange theory" of emotions 
Emotions 78 

Nature and kinds 

Alleged antagonism between feehng and knowing 
Sentiments .- . . . 82 

The place of sentiments in human life 

Classification of sentiments 

"Moods", "temperaments", "dispositions", "passions" 

Conation: the doing aspect of experience 87 

Willing in the wide and in the narrow sense 

Impulse as the simple will element 

Attention "voluntary" and "involuntary" 

Interest 

Choice; motives, deliberation 

Execution; sustained activity, "resolution" 

"Freedom of the will" 

SYNTHESIS OF SELFHOOD (This section is omitted from this 
edition) 
(Genesis of self-consciousness) 
(Establishing personal character) 
(Ideals as final causes in building a life) 



A SYLLABUS OF PSYCHOLOGY 



GENERAL INTRODUCTION 

Chapter I — Definition of Psychology 

1. Psychology defined. Psychology is the science of personal 
experiences as they exist in consciousness. 

(a) Importance of a strict definition. It is important that the 

student of Psychology should at the very outset of his study determine 
with precision the field and method of his science, since vagueness in the 
fundamental conceptions of what Psychology is about and the methods 
by which its data are handled and evaluated will obscure all his inves- 
tigations and discourage him from his highest efforts in study. No other 
science has suffered more from lack of accurate definition of subject 
matter and strict delimitation of its field than Psychology. The definition 
given above is in general narrower than that of the common textbook or 
scientific treatise; it purposely restricts the matter to be studied to 
the events of conscious personal life, leaving to the biologists and sociol- 
ogists large areas and groups of phenomena which many later writers on 
Psychology have sought to conquest for their own science. 

(b) Other definitions. The student will find a critical study of 
the common definitions of Psychology profitable. The following will 
serve as types: — 

'^ Psychology is the science of consciousness." This is analogous to 
defining Geometry as/Hhe science of space," or Algebra as "the science 
of time; " and just as there can be no science of space or of time so there 
can be no science of ''consciousness " in any proper use of that term. Nor 
is the definition improved by the statement that it is "the science of the 
phenomena of consciousness," since every explanatory science deals 
with phenomena, not with any substantial reality of which they are 
viewed as manifestations. The question is, Is consciousness, continuous 
or discrete, the concrete entity whose phenomena are to be described and 
explained by the psychologist? Is not consciousness related to the 
real objects of psychological study very much as "space" is to the figures 
of Geometry, or "nature" to the objects of study in Physics? 

"Psychology is the science of mental processes," is Titchener's defi- 
nition, to which Stout adds the word " positive " ("the positive science of 
mental processes") to distinguish Psychology as a fact science from the 
normative sciences. In a similar definition Baldwdn introduces the word 
"actual" ("the science of actual psychical processes") to emphasize 
the fact that Psychology deals with real processes in the life of an individ- 
ual person, not with the abstractions of science. These are good working 
definitions; but does not Psychology deal immediately with the concrete 
events in personal life, with bits of life that have a kind of real complete- 
ness in themselves which scientific analysis transforms and resolves into 
"processes"? 

Those who define Psychology as "the science of the soul," or "the 
science of mind," or "the science of the facts or phenomena of self," 



10 A Syllabus of Psychology 

recognize a unit}^ and integrity of personal life that is not regarded in 
the definitions just considered. Some psychologists, especially those 
who have " Si Psychology without a soul," object to the metaphysical 
presuppositions and implications of these definitions; but they are 
analogous to defining Physics as ^'the science of matter," or ''the science 
of inorganic nature," and are no more objectionable from the standpoint 
of philosophy than the commonly accepted definitions of other sciences. 
In Ladd's widely approved definition of Psychology as "the science 
of the states of consciousness as such," the words ''as such" are added 
to restrict the subject matter of the study to the facts of mental life as 
facts, mthout metaphysical assumptions or speculations. The student 
should, however, bear in mind that no scientific study of "facts" is 
possible apart from a "working hypothesis," and that all true science 
deals constructively with its data in formulating laws and outlining theo- 
ries. What does Ladd mean by "states of consciousness"? In a simi- 
lar way Bowne seeks to limit the field in his definition "the science of 
mental facts and processes. " There is certainly much more room for meta- 
physical theory in James' definition as "the science of mental life, both of 
its phenomena and its conditions." What does he mean by "mental 
life"; and are its "conditions" merely the bodily aspects of such life? 

References 

Bowne, Introduction to Psychological Theory, p 1. 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, p. 1. 

Wimdt, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 1-2. 

Stout, Analytical Psychology, Vol. I- pages 1 and 9. 

Sully, Human Mind, Vol. I, pp. 1-13. 

Ladd, Outline of Descriptive Psychology, p. 1; Psychology Descriptive and Ex- 
planatory, p. 1; Elements of Physiological Psychology, pp. 1-2. 

. Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 1-8; Elements of Psychology, p. 1. 

Dewey, P.sychology, p. 1. 

Titchener, Outline of Psychology, pp. 6-11. 

Royce, Outlines of Psychology, p. 1. 

Spiller, Mind of Man, p. 37. 

Hoffding, Outlines of Psychology, p. 1. 

Judd, Psychology, pp. 1 and 13. 

AngeU, Psychology, p. 1. 

Calkins, Introduction to Psychology, p. 3. 

Dexter and GarUck, Psychology in the Schoolroom, pp. 1-2. 

Encyclopedia Britannica, Ward's article. Vol. XX, pp. 43-44; also in Werner's 
American Supplement, Vol. XXVIII, p. 513. 

Baldwin's Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, Vol. II, p. 382. 

2. Psychology a science. The major genus in the definition of 
iPsychology in the preceding section is "science"; the assertion is that 
Psychology is a science. Now, the justification of the claim to rank our 
study as a science depends upon both its method and its subject matter; 
its method is "scientific," and its materials are worthy the critical ex- 
planatory^ investigations of its students. 

(a) Method in science. Whether any body of knowledge or 
field of study is a science is primarily a question of method. Karl Pearson 
(Grammar of Science) says,~ "The unity of all science consists alone in 
its method, not in its material. The man who classifies facts of any kind 
whatever, who sees their mutual relation and describes their sequence, 



A Syllabus of Psychology 11 

is applying the scientific method and is a man of science. It is not the 
facts themselves which form science, but the method in which they are 
dealt with." What is "the scientific method " : and is it true that any 
related body of knowledge, however unworthy of serious inquiry its 
subject may be, may truly become a science? 

(b) Materials of Psychology scientific. A little reflection will 
convince the student that the events of personal fife as given in individ- 
ual consciousnesses are worthy materials of scientific investigation; and 
as he progresses in his study and learns to see these facts more clearly^ 
the field of his science will become definitely fixed. 

(c) Psychology an actual science. The right of Psychology to be 
called a science does not depend upon the amount of knowledge that has 
been acquired regarding mental processes; if the method of the psycholo- 
gist is scientific and his materials worthy of critical study, the fact that 
his branch of knowledge as defined today is comparatively new cannot 
debar it from the family of sciences. However, Psychology is more 
than "a. science in posse''; it is a science in esse, and its '^ Weber's Law" 
is surely as scientific as the "laws of sliding friction" in Physics, though 
its "coefficients'' may not be quite so arbitrarily established. 

References 

Pearson, Grammar of Science, p. 14 et. seq. 
Calkins, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 3-7. 
Fairbanks, Introduction to Sociology, pp. 18-33. 
Mackenzie, Manual of Ethics, pp. 5-6 and 20-22. 

Ladd, Outlines of Descriptive Psychology, p. 6; Psychology Descriptive and 
Explanatory, pp. 2-4. 

Titchener, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 1-11; Textbook of Psychology, pp. 1-6. 
Robertson, Elements of Psychology, pp. 1-11. 
Sully, Human Mind, Vol. I, pp. 1-4. 
FuUerton, Introdutcion to Philosophy, pp. 230-235. 
. Hoffding, Problems of Philosophy, pp. 12-13. 
Report of Congress of Arts and Sciences, St. Louis, Vol. V, pp. 593-604. 

3. Subject matter of Psychology. The differentia of our defi- 
nition, '^personal experiences as they exist in consciousness," designates 
a perfectly definite subject matter for the science. Psychology deals 
with conscious facts, facts as they are found in individual consciousness; 
or as Kulpe states it, "the facts of experience in their dependency upon 
experiencing individuals." 

(a) Two views of mind. There are two pretty sharply distinguish- 
ed views of mind in modern Psychology; the "structural view" and "the 
functional view." In the first the events of conscious life are thought 
to constitute the mind, that is, the mind is nothing but a "stream of 
processes. " In the second the mind is thought to be a substantial entity, 
a ding-an-sich, of which the conscious events are the phenomena. This 
is a metaphysical question, the metaphysical question of all ages, with 
which the student of Psychology is not immediately concerned Just 
as the student of Physics need not concern himself with the "substantial 
nature" of matter, but only with its "phenomena," so in Psychology the 



12 A Syllabus of Psychology 

matter to be studied, the events of conscious life, may be viewed indiffer- 
ently by the psychologist as a form of "becoming" or the manifestation 
of a ''being." 

(b) Psychical facts and physical facts. The facts of Psychology 
are the conscious facts of an individual organism, while the facts of Physics 
are common facts, belonging alike to many organisms. Compare 
the physical "sound" of the vibrating violin string with the feeling of 
satisfaction or dissatisfaction of the hearer. A physical process takes 
place in space and time, and it is conceived to be independent of the per- 
ceiving mind, thus the snowfiakes fall upon the mountain top where man 
has never climbed. A psychical process is not in space and time, and it 
owes its existence to a psycho-physical organism. In our experiences we 
share physical facts with others; but our thoughts and feelings (psychical 
facts) we cannot share with others. "Psychical facts are individual 
facts; physical facts are over-individual facts." — Munsterberg. 

References. 

Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 2-6. 
Kulpe, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 1-7. 
Hoffding, Outlines of Psychology, p. 1 et seq. 

Ladd, Outlines of Descriptive Psychology, pp. 1-6; Psychology Descriptive and 
Explanatory, p. 1 et seq. 

Munsterberg, Psychology and the Teacher, pp. 31-32; Eternal Values, p. 134. 
Sully, Human Mind, Vol. I, pp. 1-13. 
Titchener, Primer of Psychology, pp. 4-12. 
Wundt, dutUnes of Psychology, pp. 1-22. 



A Syllabus of Psychology 13 

Chapter II — ^Method of Psychology 

4. Psychological analysis. The method of Psychology is strictly 
the method of all modern science, i.e., analysis for the purpose of des- 
cription and explanation. The concrete expedience is resolved into 
constituent factors, which are in turn split up into still simpler components 
and so on until the simplest -elements are reached ; the description and 
explanation of the -experience depends upon a constructive synthesis 
of these elemental factors, noting the effect and value of each in the 
life event. 

(a) Psychology became a science only a generation ago, when, 
breaking away from a priori assumptions as to the nature of the soul 
and how it should manifest itself, earnest students devoted themselves 
to direct observation of the facts of mental life as they actually are. 
The problem of the new science was the explanation of the phenomena 
of conscious life. As a positive science it found its field in the description 
of the facts of personal life as revealed in consciousness; and its explana- 
tions were made to depend upon careful observation of the facts them- 
selves, instead of upon preconceived philosophical theory. 

(b) The modern psychologist bases his description and explanation 
of the events of personal life upon an analysis of their structure. How- 
ever, the analysis of an experience does not consist in splitting it up into 
'' smaller experiences," each with a kind of completeness in itself, nor 
even into separate ''part processes" of knowing, feehng and wilhng to 
be viewed as independent facts of life. While the botanist tears his 
flower apart that he may examine separately its stamens and pistil and 
the chemist resolves the compound in his crucible into simpler substances, 
there is no such partitioning of the events of life in their critical study 
by the psychologist. The analysis of an experience consists in disting- 
uishing within the unity of the conscious event phases or aspects which 
may be abstracted for critical observation. The study of ''feeling" 
by the psychologist is analogous to the study of color by the physicist, 
each is possible only by an abstraction which transforms the reality for 
its special purpose. 

References 

Ladd, Psychology Descriptive and Explanatory, p. 14 et seq. 

Robertson, Elements of Psychology, p. 19. 

Sully, Human Mind, Vol. I, pp. 22-26. 

Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 20-24. 

Titchener, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 15-18. 

Stout, Groundwork of Psychology, pp. 10-12. 

Calkins, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 7-10, 17. 

5. Introspection, The immediate source of psychological data 
is the critical observation of the events of personal life as they are given 
in consciousness. Introspection differs essentially in its field from the 
extro-spective observation of the physical sciences. Just as the meteor- 
ologist finds the data of his science in space, so the psychologist finds 
his in his own consciousness; the one looks outward to an objective world 



14 A Syllabus of Psychology 

of physical phenomena, the other attends to an inner subjective world 
of mental phenomena. The place of introspection in the work of psy- 
chologists is emphasized by James in his usual cogent expression as fol- 
lows: '^Introspective observation is what we have to rely on first and 
foremost and always." 

(a) To deny, as some leading psychologists do on theoretical grounds, 
the possibility of the immediate examination of mental processes is to 
reject patent facts. That a person is immediately aware of the events 
of his own life is a fact so universally accepted that no amount of philo- 
sophical speculation can discredit it. The existence in conscious life 
of ideas and feelings is undoubted both in the naive experience of the un- 
critical person and in the reflective attention of the scientific student; 
the one great fact that has remained unquestioned throughout the episte- 
mological speculations of all ages is that we are aware of our own exis- 
tence in the activities of a personal life. Similarly the fact that attention 
may be directed to this consciousness of events of personal life and that 
they may be critically observed is commonly admitted, even by those who 
assert for a priori reasons that such observation is ''entirely worthless." 
Whatever theory there may be to the contrary, we do know that there are 
mental facts revealed in individual consciousness and we do know that 
we may critically investigate such facts. 

(b) The subject-object problem in psychological theory is one which 
the beginner in the study does not need to solve. It is easy to ask un- 
answerable questions regarding how the mind can be both the knowing 
subject and the known object, how "consciousness is both the instrument 
and the object of inquiry"; but it can be shown that in all such questions 
there is an unwarranted assumption of similarity in the observation of 
physical facts to the observation of psychical facts. There is an attempt 
to force the extrospective attitude of the physicist with its space-con- 
ditioned facts upon the psychologist whose facts are essentially unspatial 
and unobjective in character. In the introspective examination of events 
in consciousness there is no such "objectifying" as is employed in the 
examination of the objects of Phj^sics; the critical analysis of personal 
events for description and explanation is essentially different from the 
botanist's analysis of a plant structure. 

(c) The assertion that " all introspection is essentially retrospection, " 
that "introspective examination must be a post mortem examination," 
is not warranted by the facts. What is a memory; is it any more static, 
any more a thing to be objectified than an experience originating in direct 
contact mth the stimulating environment? If a memory is itself a pro- 
cess in consciousness, is it any more adapted to objective examination 
from without than the original experience of which it is in some sense a 
revival? Does the statement that the introspective examination of the 
facts of personal life is a post mortem dissection mean that there is such 
a thing as a corpse of an experience that may be floated upon the stream 
of psychic processes for analytic study? Is it not rather true that a 
life consists in the progressive reconstruction of experiences about con- 
tinuously changing image centers; and that it is impossible to conceive 
of any such flotsam as tl)is view of memory implies? Whatever may be 



A Syllabus of PsYCHOLOG-y 15 

the difficulty in the direct examination of an experience during its pro- 
gress, such examination is the essential method of Psychology. 

(d) The statement is frequently made that 'introspection so alters 
the state of consciousness to be observed as to render the process worth- 
less for scientific purposes"; thus, according to this view, one cannot 
enjoy the taste of fruit and at the same time critically observe the cog- 
nitive and affective processes that constitute the enjoyment. While 
it is certainly true that attention to a psychic fact does modify that fact as 
given in consciousness, it is equally true that attention to a physical 
fact in like manner modifies that fact as known to the observer. It is 
not only true that all sciences transform reality for their own purposes, 
but also that all scientific analysis alters the phenomena with which it 
deals to accord with a point of view and a perspective of the observer. 
In general the study of psychical phenomena presents no more difficulty 
to the trained student than the study of physical phenomena. Each 
requires proper method and allowance for exaggeration due to concen- 
trated attention and for errors of the "personal equation." 

References 

Ladd, Psychology Descriptive and Explanatory, pp. 14-19. 

Ladd, Outlines of Descriptive Psychology, p. 11. 

Ladd, Elements of Physiological Psychology, p. 9. 

Spiller, Mind of Man,>p. 15-22. 

Kulpe, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 8-9. 

Scripture, The New Psychology, pp. 8-12. 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 6-8. 

James, Principles of Psychology,' Vol. I, p. 185 et seq. 

Stout, Manual of Psychology, pp. 14-20. 

Stout, Groundwork of Psychology, p. 13. 

Hoffding, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 16-21. 

SuUy, Human Mind, Vol. I, pp. 15-18. 

Iveatinge, Suggestion in Education, p. 135. 

Calkins, Introduction to Psychology, p. 9. 

Villa, Contemporary Psychology, pp. 129-134. 

Royce, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 16-18. 

Judd, Psychology, p. 14. 

Morgan, Introduction to Comparative Psychology, p. 20. 

Morgan, Psychology for Teachers, pp. 71 and 77. 

Brackenbury, Primer of Psychology, pp. 6-7. 

Pillsbury, Attention, pp. 212-214. 

Roark, Psychology in Education, pp. 9-10. 

Betts, Mind and Its Education, pp. 2-3. 

Robertson, Elements of Psychology, pp. 13-15, 

Titchener, Outhne of Psychology, pp. 39-41. 

Titchener, Textbook of Psychology, pp. 19-25. 

Angell, Psychology, p. 4. 

6. Inferential Methods. While the primarj^ source of psychological 
data is the direct observation of the facts of one's own conscious life, 
there are important supplementary sources to which the psychologist 
may profitably have recource under well defined conditions. In the use 
of these secondary sources certain '^ auxiliary methods" have been 
developed to supplement the fundamental ^'introspective method" of 
Psychology. These may be properly called inferential methods to dis- 
tinguish them from the direct method of introspection. The most im- 



16 A Syllabus of Psychology 

portant of these secondary sources and methods are: (1) observation of 
the actions of other persons constituted hke ourselves, as a means of 
discovering how the mind works of which these actions are the accepted 
physiological expression; (2) observation of the development of children 
as they grow to maturity of structure and functioning, seeking in their 
less complex experiences more easily distinguished elements, just as the 
student of Sociology turns to the lives of primitive people? for data iu 
his science; (3) observation of the life processes of defectives — the blind, 
the deaf, and the bodily maimed — , as nature's ready-made "control 
experiments; " (4) observation of the imbecile, the insane and the criminal, 
whose biased lives throw a side-light upon normal life processes; (5) 
analytic study of literature, art, customs and institutions of peoples, as 
expressions of mind; and (6) observations of the activities of animals as 
manifestations of intelligent adaptation to environment. In the analogi- 
cal reasoning involved in all of these auxiliary methods of seeking psy- 
chological facts the student is in constant danger of overestimating the 
value of his work; he overlooks the fact that his own consciousness is 
the field in which all psychological data have value for his science. He 
''reads into" the workings of the animal and the insane mind facts of 
his own consciousness and deceives himself into thinking he has found 
them there. Nevertheless, with proper care this indirect method of 
seeking mental facts will yield good results. 

(a) We study our own experiences directly; the experiences of others, 
indirectly. We find the facts of our own mental life immediately in the 
field of consciousness; we infer the facts of the mental life of others from 
bodily signs. We accept the changes in the body of another person 
as the result of mental processes, and we infer what the mental processes 
are from known relations between body states and mind states. That 
we often make mistakes in attributing to others thoughis and feelings 
which they do not have does not wholly discredit this important mode 
of studying mental life; it only reveals to us our lack of clear knowledge of 
the relation of mind to body, and warns us against errors of "personal 
equation" of the observer. Since all interpretation of the physiological 
expression of mind in others must be in terms of facts of the observer's 
own consciousness, it follows that the more closely the experiences of 
those observed parallel those of the observer the more reliable will be the 
data thus gathered. Hence the most important auxiliary source of 
psychological data is the lives of normal adult persons living under the 
same conditions as the observer. 

(b) Valuable data may be obtained by the psychologist from the 
judicious observation of the mental processes of children as they are 
manifested in bodily expression and conduct. The systematic watching 
and recording of stages in the development of infants is a field much 
worked in recent years by over-hopeful and over-credulous students of 
Psychology; but the attempt to differentiate from the general sciences 
of Anthropology and Biology a special science of "Child Study" has not 



A Syllabus of Psychology 17 

proved successful. Much of this Child Study, inexpert and quasi-scien- 
tific, is not psychological, and it has contributed practically nothing to 
Psj^chology. Even when the observations of the lives of children are 
discriminatingly carried on by trained psychologists in a proper search 
of mental facts there are peculiar difficulties in such study which render 
the validity of the results questionable. The persistent misunderstanding 
of children in the home and the schoolroom is a vicious fault from which 
even the psychologist seems unable to free himself. 

(c) The relation of the mind and the body, whether regarded as two 
separate interacting entities or as two phases of one indivisible "stream 
of experience," is so vital that any defect of the body (lack of eye, ear 
or other organ) lessens or impairs the mind also; thus, a person congenit- 
ally blind or deaf cannot have ideas of colors or tones as persons have 
whose end-organs of vision and audition give them perceptions of the 
physical environment. A critical study of these abridged lives serves 
to determine in a negative way the place of the sensation factors of sight 
and hearing in the normal stream of consciousness. It is important here 
that the psychologist should know thoroughly the structure and func- 
tioning of the normal body-mind organism in order that he may correctly 
perceive and rightly value his facts, just as the physician must diagnose 
his case on the basis of what he knows of the healthy life. The chief 
difficulty is the observer's inability to distinguish the vicarious action 
of other end-organs from the normal action of the missing organs. The 
student should bear in mind constantly that he is not concerned with 
how one sense organ may by increased delicacy make up, in a measure, 
for the absence of another organ, but with the nature and conditions of 
the psychic factors of the experience of the one whom he observes, so far 
as he is able to interpret them from bodily expressions; he is a psychologist, 
not a physiologist. 

(d) A systematic study of the behavior of the insane as a means of 
discovering facts concerning mental hfe m general is a field worthy of 
more attention than it has received. What is recommended here, however 
is not the aUenist's study of psychopathology from the physician's stand- 
point, but the psychologist's study of the phenomena of conscious life 
in the mental aberation of those observed. A similar study of the feeble- 
minded, the sick, and the criminal would prove profitable, provided 
always that the psychologist's point of view is maintained. 

(e) The creations of art— in sculpture, in painting, in literature, 
in music — are manifestations of the minds of the artists, which properly 
studied may be made to furnish some data for Psychology. In a similar 
way the customs, laws and institutions of peoples -are embodiments of 
mental activities that may be interpreted by the psychologist. In fact, 
all that man has done or does, individually and collectively, is but the 
embodiment of mind to be critically examined by the psychologist in 
accordance with his well-defined working hypothesis. 

(f) When the student observes the life activities and behavior of 
animals in his search for facts concerning mind, he enters the domain of 
general Biology. If we are to define Psychology as " the science of mind " 
wherever and in whatever form it may exist, then we are equally inter- 



18 A Syllabus of Psychology 

ested in all the phenomena of sentient life in human beings, in animals, 
and even in plants. Such definition is analogous to defining Geography 
as 'Hhe science of the earth" to the obliteration of all lines of demarkation 
mth Astronomy and Geology. Strictly Psychology is not even con- 
cerned with all the facts of human mind, but only with such as rise above 
the threshold of consciousness; it deals with conscious personal exper- 
iences, and a knowledge of all other mental phenomena is merely con- 
tributory intelligence in the fields of cognate sciences. There is much 
to interest the student of the general phenomena of life — of mind in the 
biological sense — in the systematic observation of animals; but such ob- 
servations yield little for Psychology. He should especially beware of 
the credulous acceptance of the theories of life attributed to bees, ants 
and beavers by romancing naturalists. He is not concerned with the 
question of Svhether animals have minds', or 'whether a dog that has 
done wrong from the human standpoint has remorse' ; his interest in the 
manifestations of life in animals is determined by the hope of some help 
in the rational description and explanation of the phenomena of his own 
conscious fife. 

References 

Kiilpe, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 12-18. 

Bascom Comparative Psychology, pp. 2-6. 

Ladd, Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory, pp. 16-22. 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, p. 194. 

Sully, Human and Animal Mind, Vol. I, pp. 18-22. 

Judd, Psychology, pp. 8-10. 

Dexter and Garlick, Psychology in the Schoolroom, pp. 4-6. 

Villa, Contemporary Psychology, pp. 153-165. 

Drummond, Introduction to Child-Study, pp. 1-95. 

Stout, Manual of Psychology, pp. 20-24. 

Titchener, Textbook of Psychology, pp. 30-36. 

7. Experimentation is doing for modern Psychology what it has 
done for the older descriptive and explanatory sciences. It is in the 
psj^chological laboratory with its experimental research that the center 
of all systematic study of mental processes is to be found. That some 
leading psychologists speak disparagingly of experimenting in the field 
of psj^chic events is doubtless due, in part at least, to a failure to recog- 
nize the fact that experimental observation the characteristic indispen- 
sible method of all analytic explanatory science, must vary with the 
subject matter of investigation. Experiments must be adapted in aim 
and procedure to the field of the science in which they are employed; 
thus, the experiments in Biology differ in purpose and process from the 
experiments in Chemistry. If it is admitted that is it at all possible to 
observe events in consciousness and that it is possible to so control the 
circumstances of life activities as to produce such events at will, then 
experimenting in Psycholog}^ has precisely the same warrant in scientific 
method as experimenting in Agriculture. That the purpose and the 
limitations of such experimenting have been misunderstood by some over- 
zealous advocates of the ''New Psychology" and that some of the results 



A Syllabus of Psychology 19 

have no psychological value should not discredit this mode of study. 
From its beginnings with Fechner wonderful work has been done in Psy- 
chology through experimentation, and there is no doubt that the earnest 
worker, with rightly determined purpose and process, will in the future 
reap richly in this field 

(a) All observations of phenomena, in whatever field of investigation , 
ma}^ be grouped in two well differentiated classes; observations under 
natural conditions, in which the student attends to the phenomena as 
they occur incidentally in the ordinary course of nature; and observation 
under artificial conditions, in which he so controls and directs natural 
processes as to bring before him at will under the most favorable condi- 
tions the phenomena which he wishes to observe. Observing under arti- 
ficial conditions is experimenting, in which the essential element is the 
intelligent observation made more systematic and accurate by simpli- 
fying the conditions. The value of experimenting in science consists 
in the definiteness of the observation; the experimenter restricts the field 
of his observations with specific purpose and actively seeks within it the 
particular facts of his immediate interest. In experimenting the student 
(1) brings before him phenomena when desired, (2) repeats his material 
at will, (3) issolates particular phenomena for critical examination, and 
(4) uses mechanical instruments for excitation and record. The observer 
works under understood conditions, and is thus able to test theories of 
casual connection by varying the conditions. Since he, in a sense, makes 
his material when he wishes it, instead of finding it as in observation 
under natural conditions, an hour may give him greater results than years 
of waiting for nature to reveal herself in her ordinary course. Experi- 
menting has been somewhat poetically defined as "asking questions of 
nature." 

(b) All that has been said in the preceding paragraph about experi- 
menting in general applies to experimenting in Psychology, making proper 
allowance for the nature of the material employed. A psychological 
experiment is the introspective analysis of a conscious experience under 
controlled conditions. The so-called '^ experimental method" in psy- 
chology is not a new source of distinct data; it is merely more accurate 
observation under specifically prearranged conditions. It is also possible to 
experiment in the interpretative study of the mental processes of others as 
manifested in their bodily states; thus the student of Psychology may 
''experiment upon another" as the zoologist experiments upon the living 
animal in his laboratorj^ Where the students work in pairs in the 
psychological laboratory, the one who introspectively examines and 
reports the facts of his own experiences is truly the " experimenter " and the 
other who merely aids in controlling the circumstances of his observa- 
tions is the "assistant." In the indirect experiment, however, the one 
who stimulates action in the other is properl3^c ailed an " experimenter ' ' 
in the general biological sense, and the one upon whose life processes he 
works is called the "subject" of his experiments. It is essential to clear- 
ness" in his investigations that the student should note that the experi- 
ment in this indirect observation of mental phenomena in the lives of 
others is not strictly a "psychological experiment" in the field of the 



20 A Syllabus of Psychology 

science. Each science must deal with its own data directly in its own 
field. The subject matter of Psychology is mental facts as given in indi- 
visual consciousness; and psychological experimentation is essentially 
emplo3^ed with such facts in the consciousness of the experimenter. 

(c) The scope of psychological experiments has unfortunately been 
a disputed point. Some psychologists contend that the possible field 
of experiment in their science is a very narrow one, confined entirely to 
a kind of physiological testing of sense organs as the bodily concomitants 
of the elements of cognition. As "physiological psychologists" they 
have devoted themselves to investigations of sensations due to various 
forms of stimulation of the peripheral end-organs of the nervous mecha- 
nism. They have persistently robbed Psychology of a proper scientific 
interest in the whole field of human experience; for there is probably no 
form or phase of personal life that may not be critically examined under 
experimental conditions. A curious form of this biased experimental 
study is shown in the attempt to discover mathematical laws in the re- 
lation of the physical stimulus to the psychic state. While important 
bi-products have been obtained in the work with ''Weber's Law," "re- 
action times," and other conceptions of "Psycho-physics," the fact that 
psychical facts cannot be measured precludes the possibility of any direct 
results for Psychology in such study. Psychological facts are qualita- 
tive, not quantitative; and a mechanics of the psycho-physical organism 
is unthinkable in the field of a true Psychology. The present great need 
in this science is such a defining of its subject matter and delimitation of 
its field as will center the earnest efforts of research students profitably 
upon the rich materials of their own subject of study. 

(d) A psychological laboratory is a material equipment in building 
and apparatus to facilitate the experimental observation of facts of men- 
tal life. The construction and equipment of such a laboratory depends 
upon both the particular work to be done and the end sought in the work. 
There are a few standard pieces of apparatus for stimulating action, 
registering results and recording time which are found in all laboratories; 
but the field is so broad and at present so vaguely defined that each lab- 
oratory worker devises and constructs his own apparatus to meet his 
particulai need Much of the direct introspective study of the phe- 
nomena of one 's own consciousness requires very simple apparatus ; more 
elaborate apparatus is frequently emploj^ed in experimenting on others 
in the indirect observation of mental facts. Doubtless as the center of 
interest shifts from the attempted quantitative investigation of the re- 
sults of stimulating the sense organs to the broader and richer field of the 
explanatory study of complete experience in all its phases, there will be 
many more additions to the discarded apparatus in the lumber rooms of 
our universities, and new forms of delicate mechanism will be devised to 
aid in the ana)3'tic examination of emotions and volitions. As to their 
purpose there are two distinct kinds of psychological laboratories, ju.st 
as there are in all the other analytic sciences; research laboratories and 
teaching laboratories. It is the purpose of the research laboratories with 
their trained workers to add to the sum of human knowledge through the 
discovery of new facts ; the primary purpose in the teaching laboratories 
is exemi)lification of known facts and truths by following along the trail 



A Syllabus of Psychology 21 

of the research explorer. In the psychological teaching laboratory, how- 
ever, this distinction is less marked. The material is so immediately 
personal and always so new that every student is, in a measure, a seeker 
for new facts. The laws of this science, so far as they have been formu- 
lated, have less authority than those in Physics or Biology. The great 
need of Psychology at present is not the corroboration of some over- 
hasty generalizations in the field of Psycho-physics, but a careful analysis 
of concrete personal experiences and an honest search for facts of a strictly 
psychological nature; and in such a critical study every student can par- 
ticipate, observing the phenomena of his own conscious life unbiased as 
far as possible by any preconceived theory regarding what he ought to 
find there. 

References 

Ladd, Psychology Descriptive and Explanatory, pp. 22-24. 

Ladd, Primer of Psychology, pp. 11-12. 

Wundt, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 23-28. 

SuUy, Human Mind, Vol. I, pp. 22, 30, 31. 

Stout, Analytical Psychology, Vol. I, p. 11. 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 192 and 193. 

SpiUer, Mind of Man, pp. 34-37. 

Scripture, The New Psychology, p. 53 et seq. 

Royce, Outhnes of Psychology, pp. 18-19. 

Judd, Psychology, pp. 5-7. 

Hoffding, Outhnes of Psychology, p. 21. 

Dewey, Psychology, p. 9. 

Calkins, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 10-11. 

Titchener, Experimental Psychology, Vol. I, Part I, pp. xiii-xviii. 

Witmer, Analytical Psychology, pp. xix-xxvi. 

Myers, Textbook of Experimental Psychology, pp. 1-10. 



22 A Syllabus of Psychology 

Chapter III — Field of Psychology 

8. Psychology is one of a group of sciences that deal directly with 
human nature and human affairs. Its special field is determined by its 
limitation in subject matter and its point of view. It is a study of the 
events of personal life in much the same way as modern History is a study 
of the events in the life of a social organism. History, as a science, is 
a phase of genetic Sociology; so Psychology may be viewed as a genetic 
study of individual character. The psychologist deals ^vith the life 
events of a human organism as biological factors seen from within. The 
concrete objects of his study are personal experiences as found in indi- 
vidual consciousness; and his work with such materials is possible only 
in the subjective awareness of his consciousness. The field of Psychology, 
then, strictly defined is human life as known in consciousness; it seeks 
to describe and explain the life as it manifests itself in personal exper- 
iences, analyzing them to determine what they are and synthesizing them 
into the organic structure of a human being. 

(a) While the temptation to the system-making psychologist is 
strong to extend the field of his science beyond the narrow limits here 
given, definiteness in investigation and clearness in discussion are pro- 
moted by keeping strictly within the proper field of the science. '^ Ani- 
mal Psychology" and '^Race Psychology" are interesting and profitable 
studies, but they are not Psycholog}^ in any true sense of the term, any 
more than the so-called ''Agricultural Botany" is a legitimate division 
of the science of Botany. 

(b) On the other hand, the student should endeavor to free himself 
from the present tendency of psychologists to restrict his field too much 
by placing undue emphasis upon cognition; the affective and conative 
phases of experience are at least as worth}- of his study. Knowing is 
but one aspect of conscious human life, with which feeling and willing 
are inseparably connected. Our study should include in its scope an 
impartial examination of all the elements and aspects of personal exper- 
iences as they cumulatively build a human life. 

9. The field of Psychology. The field of Psychology may be 
negatively defined by distinguishing it from the fields of other sciences. 
In tracing the lines of demarkation the student should remember two 
things: first that the fields of sciences do not "overlap," each science 
being exclusive in its own field; and second, that the same phenomena 
may be rightfully examined, explained, and evaluated in two or more 
sriences, each science dealing with them from its own point of view. It 
is neither desirable nor possible to give here a logical classification of 
sciences, nor even to give a complete scheme of relations between Psy- 
chology and its more immediately^ cognate and allied sciences. What 
is desired is to suggest some characteristics of a few common fields of 
scientific study in distinction from the clearl}^ defined field of Psychology. 



A Syllabus of Psychology 23 

Physics is the science, or more properly group of sciences, that seeks 
to describe and explain the objective world of matter and energy — an 
''over-individual," ''independent" world of facts that may be analyzed 
and valued. Psychology is the science that seeks to describe and explain 
the subjective world of mind — an "individual," "dependent" world of 
facts that can also be analyzed and valued. The facts of Physics are in 
space and time; the facts of Psychology are in consciousness. 

Biology is the general science of life, both of animals and plants; 
it is concerned with the structure and functions of living organisms. 
Physiology in its more technical sense deals with functioning only, though 
in Human Physiolog}^ it commonly includes a study of both structure 
and function. Human Physiology is a study of the psychophysical or- 
ganism from the side of the body; Human Psychology is a study of the 
same organism from the side of the mind. 

Epistemology is the general science of knowledge, with special refe- 
rence to the validity of the knowledge, i.e., its relation to its objects; 
Logic is the science of constructive thinking, with special reference to 
the validity of the process. Psychology is concerned with the process 
of knowing as such; Epistemology with the truth of what is known as it 
consists in the concord of the cognitions with reality. Psychology deals 
with the actual processes of reasoning as they occur in reflective cogni- 
tion; Logic, with the processes as they ought to be in effective reasoning. 
Psychology is strictly a fact science, while both Logic and Epistemology 
have important normative characteristics. 

The science of Aesthetics has its contact with Psychology in the 
province of feeling; while in its Greek etymology the term denotes per- 
ception of the outer world through the sense of touch, in its present 
usage it denotes subjective appreciation rather than objective knowing. 
The psychologist describes and explains feelings as a phase of conscious 
experience; the student of Aesthetics objectifies the feeling of agreeable- 
ness in "beauty" and determines rules for its 'mitation in the fine arts. 

Ethics is a normative science dealing with the laws of right living; 
it resembles Aesthetics, the science of beauty of form, in treating of 
beauty of moral conduct. Psychology is concerned with understanding 
conscience and the processes of moral living; Ethics formulates the norms 
of right conduct as the realization of ideal individual and social life. 
Psychology furnishes the data for modern "evolutionary Ethics," the 
"pragmatic," "energistic" Ethics of self-realization; but Ethics itself 
is essentially a science of values, not of facts as such. 

History (political History), like Psychology, is a positive science; 
its province is the events in the organic life of a community of persons. 
It endeavors analytically to describe and explain the progressive ideals 
and developing institutional forms of a social organism. Psychology is 



24 A Syllabus of Psychology 

concerned with personal experiences and its data are essentially individ-, 
ual; History is concerned with group experiences and its data are '' over- 
individual." 

Pedagogy is the science of education, i. e., of the rational cultivation 
of another's life through determining his experiences. It is a normative 
science, and is related to Psychology as Politics is to Sociology. In the 
psychology of suggestion we learn how one may intentionally modify 
another's life; in Pedagogy, how one ought to modify it so as to make 
it larger and better than it would be without such intentional influence. 

References. 

Wundt, Outlines of Psychology, p. 17. 
Sully, Human Mind, Vol. I, pp. 5-11. 
Hoffding, Outlines of Psychology, p. 27. 
Hyslop, Elements of Ethics, p. 7. 
Creighton, Introduction to Logic, pp. 4-7. 
Stout, Manual of Psychology, pp. 4-6. 
Mackenzie, Manual of Ethics, p. 27. 
Judd, Psychology, pp. 379-382 

10. Kinds and divisions of Psychology. Various kinds and di- 
visions of Psychology have been recognized by writers upon the subject, 
depending on divisions of the field and special methods of investigation. 
While the greater part of these ''Psychologies" are illcgically disting- 
uished and place undue emphasis upon incidental facts in matter and 
method, a critical examination of their claims to separate treatment will 
serve still further to clear up the definition, scope, and method of our 
science. 

Some psychologists distinguish between a General Psychology, 
dealing with the normal adult mind, and various Special Psychologies, 
dealing with the mind at some other stage than that of its best estate or 
with some limited aspect of the mental life. 

Infant Psychology investigates the less complex events of the nas- 
cent mind of children; Adolescent Psychology is concerned with the 
mind of youth in the transition from childhood to manhood; Senile Psy- 
chology deals with the mind of old age, when the catabolic processes of 
the body are in the ascendency. Psychology of the Senses is a study 
of elementary cognitive processes with a strong bias to a physiological 
study of the peripheral end-organs of the nervous mechanism; Psychology 
of Feeling is but a special chapter of Psychology proper, concerned with 
the affective phases of consciousness. Psychology of Art, Psychology of 
ReUgion, Psychology of Crime, etc., are descriptive phrases of obvious 
meaning. 

Psychology is divided into Individual (or Personal) Psychology 
and Collective Psycholog}^, accord'ng to whether the phenomena con- 
sidered are given in individual consciousness or are objective manifesta- 
tions of the ''collective mind" of contemporaneous or successive groups 
of people. 



A Syllabus of Psychology 25 

The term '^Individual Psychology" is also used to denote a study 
of mental differences between individuals, for which Variational Psycol- 
ogy is a better name. Social Psychology has many divisions and names, 
such as Race Psychology, Ethnic Psychology, etc., all closely akin to 
scientific History. 

A very natural division of the province of Psychology, in the broad- 
est use of the term, is into Psychology of the Normal Mind and Psychology 
of the Abnormal Mind. 

Psychiatry, or Medical Psychology, includes both Psychopathologj^ 
and Psychotherapj^ and is concerned with the improvement of bodily 
states and their physical concomitants through mental control. Educa- 
tional. Psychology is a study of the process of cultivating the minds of 
others through the constructive intentional influence of the educator. 

Psychology is characterized as Human Psychology or Animal Psy- 
chology, according to whether the facts investigated relate to human 
life or animal life. 

Animal Psychologj^, also called Comparative Psychology, is really 
a phase of Biology, though it may furnish important extrospective inter- 
pretaive data for Psychology proper. 

An attempt has been made to dist'nguish Genetic Psychology from 
the proper study of the mature mind in its normal activity, using the 
being through cumulative investigation of the development of the human 
being through cumulative experiencing. While it is possible to make a 
specialized study of the growth of children from the mental side, it should 
not be overlooked that all Psychology deals mth growth processes. AU 
Psychology is dj^namic, not static, and is a study of development. 

Psychology is also distinguished as Functional Psychology and 
Structural Psychology, according to the philosophical presupposition as 
to the nature of mind with which the student sets out in his investigations. 
In Functional Psychology all forms of psychoses are regarded as functions 
of a mind as a substantial entity; it is this unified spiritual existence that 
perceives, and feels, and attends. In Structural Psychology the know- 
ings, feelings and doings constitute the mind, i.e., a mind is '' nothing 
but a stream of processes. " From the functional standpoint the student 
seeks to discover what mind does; from the structural what mind is. 

Both these psychologies deal with the same material; it is merel}^ 
a question of the philosophic working hypothesis — not a matter of vital 
import to the beginning student, since on either hypothesis he will be 
able to make a satisfactory investigation of his own psychoses. 

The distinction between Introspective Psychology and Objective 
(extrospective) Psychology is implied in most of the dichotomous divis- 
ions given above. In the first the data of the science are the facts given 
immediately in one's own consciousness; in the second they are inter- 



26 A Syllabus of Psychology 

pretations of the physiological manifestations of mind in others. The- 
comparative value of these two kinds of Psychology is the subject of end- 
less discussions by psychologists. 

'Most psychologists admit that these two methods of studjdng mental 
facts are complemental, though they differ widely as two the relative 
values of the to as sources of data for their scientific generalizations. 
Some regard introspection as "the sole method which we can follow"; 
others say that is is "rather to be used as an auxiliary of the other methods 
than as a method capable of leading the way. " It would seem, however, 
that a strictly Objective Psychology is impossible. 

The distinction between the New Psychology and the Old Psychology 
is based upon both matter and method. The Old Psychology dealt 
with the activities and states of a hypostatized mental entity,* which, 
while it was loosely encased in the body, was not vitally dependent 
upon it; the New Psychology, whether structural or functional, treats 
all forms of experiences as conditioned upon the body. The new study 
is of the mind as truly as the old, but it alwaj^s has regard to the phj^sio- 
logical concomitant of the mental activities and states; its slogan is, 
"No psychosis Avithout somatosis." While the province of the new 
Psychology is enlarged by adding to the explanation of mental states 
a determining of their relation to the body, the most important change 
is in method ; the New Psychology has become a modern science by em- 
ploying experimentation in its investigations of phenomena. The dis- 
tinguishing characteristics of the New Psychology are thus the recogni- 
tion of the vital immanence of the mind in the body and the use of the 
laboratory methods of all modern science. 

The older Psychology is sometimes called Rational Psychology as 
distinguished from the new as Empirical Psychology, since it attempted 
an 2i priori explanation of mental facts on an assumed nature of the soul, 
while the new seeks to discover meanings by observation of the facts 
themselves. On account of the approach to the mental phenomena from 
the side of the bodily conditions the whole of the newer Psychology is 
frequently called Physiological Psychology; on account of its method 
it is sometimes called Experimental Psj^chology. 

References 

Ladd, Outlines of Descriptive Psychology, pp. 15-16. 

Lackl, Elements of Physiological Psychology, pp. 1-8. 

Ziehen, Introduction to Physiological Psychology, pp. 1-3. 

Angell, Psychology, pp. 3-4. 

Wundt, Outlines of Psychology, pi). 8-18. 

Baldwin, Elements of P.sj'chology, pp. 8-11. 

Baldwin, Handbook of Psycholog\ , Vol. I, pp. 15-17 

Baldwin, Story of the Mind, pp. 1-7. 

Villa, Contemporary Psychology, pp. 154-163. 

Bascom, Comparative Psychology, pp. 1-3. 

Bowne, Introduction to Psychological Theory, pp. 1-7. 

Siilly, Human Mind, \'ol. 1, pp. 14-23. 

Pvoss, -Sociiil Psychology, pp. 1-4. 

Buel, Essentials of Psychology, pp. 1-3. 

Thorndike, Elements of Psychology, pp. 319-321. 

Calkins, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 351-354. 



A Syllabus of Psychology 27 

ANALYSIS OF EXPERIENCE 

Chapter IV — General character of an experience 

11. What an experience is. An experience, in ttie province of 
Psychology, is a bit of conscious human Hfe, an event in the personal 
history of a human being. It is a longer or shorter segment of the life 
current as revealed in consciousness. An experience may extend through 
hours or days, as when one's life centers for a time about the final sickness 
and death of a friend; or it may last but a moment, as when one brushes 
a troublesome fly from his ear. Life is a stream of cumulative exper- 
iencing, in which each natural division of the stream has a distinct uni- 
tary character. Each experience is determined by some formative 
image center, and it may be introspectively isolated from other matter 
in consciousness. As a concrete object of psychological study, it has a 
beginning, a development and an ending. One's experience is his real 
personal, present possession; it is always here-and-now in his life. 

The term ^'experience" is used in common speech and in philosophi- 
cal discussions with various meanings. It is here defined in its technical 
meaning in the province of Phychology proper. It is used by soma writers 
to designate all kinds of happenings to objects both animate and in- 
animate, thus, the caressing of a dog, the breaking of a twig, or the freez- 
ing of water is called an "experience" of the animal, the plant or the 
water. For the purposes of our present study it is convenient, and not 
at all arbitrary, to limit the meaning strictly to the events in human life. 

Not all the facts of the human life even are experiences in the strict 
sense of our definition, but only such organic processes as arise in con- 
sciousness; that is, experiences are facts of conscious life only. With 
the biological facts of unconscious ''reflex action" the psycholo- 
gist has to do only in a general way upon the margin of his true field. 

A mind grows by its own working; and each conscious bit of work 
that it does is an experience. An experience is essentially active ; seen 
from within, it is a dynamic process, not a static state. A body-mind 
organism does not passively undego or receive an experience; it makes 
its experience through its own intiative and constructive activity. 

The etymological meaning of the term experience is trial. In his 
experiences the human being discovers himself through a more or less 
rationally ordered trial of life's possibilities. A life is organized experienc 
es, progressively elaborated in body and soul. Each experience is re- 
productive and representative, as well as acquisitive and elaborative, 
making thus a continuity and integrity in the life progress. 

We account for an experience as a happening in consciousness by 
distinguishing two conditions of its existence: the occasion, or stimulus, 
and the reacting mind. Though fundamentally a self-originated activity, 
it is also contingent upon circumstances. As to its objective content 



28 A Syllabus of Psychology 

it refers primarily to the outer world of limiting conditions; as to its^ 
subjective processes, it is a stase of the evolution of a unified spiritual 
being. 

In every experience there is always something more than the indi- 
vidual fact as-such ; there is always recognition of the transcendant unity 
of the life in which the event occurs. As given in consciousness the 
actuality of the experiencing mind as a substrate of the experience is as 
real and as unquestionable as the actuality of the material world imping- 
ing on the peripheral end-organs of sense. With the philosophical specu- 
lations which would explain away either of these two complemental 
factors of an experience the student of elementary Psychology is not 
concerned; he deals with a world of reals, in both subject and object. 

Doubtless the most satisfactory statement of the nature and phases 
of "experience, " for the student prepared to read it, is found in Dr. Mun- 
sterberg's explanation of the plan of the Congress of Arts and Sciences at 
in St. Louis Exposition in 1904, as given in the first volume of the Re- 
port of the Congress. It must be insisted, however, that the beginner 
the-psychology need not concern himself with the philosophical meaning 
of this word, of which Shadworth Hodgson says "there is no larger word" 
in the vocabulary of scholarly thinking. 

References 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. II, pp. 619, 628. 

Judd, Psychology, pp. 13-14. 

Baldwin, Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, Vol. I, p. 360. 

Kulpe, Outlines of Psychology, p. 1. 

Spiller, Mind of Man, p. 333. 

Robertson, Elements of Psychology, pp. 51-54. 

Mitchell, Structure, and Growth of the Mind, pp. 8, 83, 107, etc. 

Krauth-Fleming, Vocabulary of Philosophical Sciences, pp. 177, 661. 

12. The procession of experiences. In the analytic study of 
the scientist a personal life may be regarded as a succession or events in 
consciousness; and some psychologists have even defined mind as a col- 
lection of segments of consciousness, a mere processional aggregation of 
mental processes. Thus the discrete events in a life history are viewed 
as pouring along like a school of minnows in shallow water. Professor 
James, with his usual happy phrase, has called this on-moving body of 
psychic facts ''the stream of consciousness." Professor Titchener has 
defined a mind, as the subject-matter of analytical Psychology, as ''the 
sum-total of the mental processes occurring in the life-time of an indi- 
vidual." In his view the mind of the psychologist's study is nothing 
but a stream of experiences, which may be analyzed into more or less 
elemental part-processes of knowing and feeling. Professor Royce 
accepts the idea of a stream of life events, but says that conscious life is 
not like "a shower of shot, but a stream with distinguishable ideas or 
other such clearer mental contents floating on its surface " He contends 
that "beside and beneath what one can distinguish in his [consciousness] 
there is the body of the stream, the background of consciousness." 



A Syllabus of Psychology 29 

The ''stream of consciousness" is the current of Ufe events of which 
an individual is immediately aware; it is the procession of his experiences. 
This does not mean that the mind is ''chopped up in bits." It is con- 
tinuous; only the concrete events appear in time as a train of thoughts 
and feelings. It is interesting to note when one is looking from the car 
window of a rapidly moving train how he sees a succession of views, or 
landscapes, sensibly distinct from each other and without the dissolving- 
view effect that might be expected. Similarly the trained introspec- 
ionist cannot catch the scene shifter at work as he transforms one con- 
sciousness into another. The human mind is a continuum ; but the con- 
scious experiences with which the psychologist deals are a somewhat 
loosely linked chain. Professor James's term "stream of thought 
[thoughts?]" designates rather the happenings that float into conscious- 
ness on the surface of the life current than the mind of which they are the 
phenomenal manifestations. 

In this topic we reach again the philosophic borderland of our study. 
As beginners in the science we must turn back from these attractive 
fields of speculation, assured that we shall find abundant material to 
investigate within the province of Psychology itself. The ultimate 
nature of mind, the theory of "mind stuff," and the idealistic construct- 
ion of experience mil prove good food for later thought. 

References 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, p. 274 et seq. 

James, Briefer Course, pp. 151-175. 

James, Talks to Teachers, pp. 15-21. 

Betts, Mind and its Education, pp. 4-10. 

Ladd, Outlines of Descriptive Psychology, pp. 34, 390. 

Royce, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 82-88. 

Wenzlaff, Mental Man, p. 59. 

Titchener, Outline of Psychology, pp. 11-15 

Titchener, Textbook of Psychology, pp. 15-19. 

13. Relation of mind to body. Not only in life as a whole, but 
in every event of a personal life, the mind and the body are inseparably 
connected. This is the greatest word of the "New Psychology," as it 
seeks by the analytic methods of modern science to understand conscious 
life in its dependence upon the body structure. In modern Psychology 
the mind is no longer dealt with apart from "the body in which it dwells" 
as a temporary lodger ; the mind is no longer regarded as inhabiting the 
body as a man dwells in a house, through the rooms of which he may 
move at will without modification of their form or arrangement ; the eyes 
and ears are no longer thought of as "mere windows of the soui" in 
the "clay tenement," through which the roaming spirit, encased in this 
loosely-fitting body, may occasionally glance at the world beyond its 
confines. The psychologist no longer looks upon the body as an impedi- 
ment to a larger spiritual life, "a clog to the soul" in its upward striving. 
Whatever may be true of "disembodied spirit" in an existence after 



30 A Syllabus of Psychology 

death, in the present life the mind lives in and through and by means of. 
the body. The connection of a mind and a body in a personal self is 
not a mere association; it is a vital union, essential to the very existence 
of a person as we know him. 

The function of the body in life experiences may be viewed in two 
ways : the body may be regarded as the medium through which the mind 
discovers and utilizes the environment, or it may be regarded as the 
material expression of the mind's creative activities. Either view is 
obviously partial and onesided; nor are they taken together completely 
complemental in the whole meaning of life. In the first view the ner- 
vous mechanism furnishes in its various forms of peripheral end-organs 
a means of contact with a surrounding world of independent facts, a 
world whose existence ''would be as though it were not" if there were 
no specially adapted instruments by which to ''sense it." Thus, a par- 
ticular form and rate of molecular quiver in the mechanical universe of 
the physicist is sensed as color by the mind through the special optical 
end-organ; and in this view the retina of the eye finds its sole meaning 
as an avenue of ingress of light impressions. In the second view the 
mind as a self -active entity realizes itself progressively in a body struc- 
ture. It grows with its body form; each experience of the uaified self 
enlarges and reforms both the body and the mind; and the human being 
as a body-mind structure is evolved through cumulative experiences. 
In this second view the mind is what it is only in its bodily fo^m; and all 
its conscious events are thus bodily conditioned. 

The study of Psychology presupposes a general knowledge of the 
human body, its organic structure and functioning. While it is cus- 
tomary to pad out a textbook on Psychology with a chapter on the anat- 
omy of the nervous system, such matter is as foreign to the book as a 
chapter on organic chemistry is in a treatise on Botany. From his pre- 
vious studies in Physics and Physiology the student of Psychology should 
have obtained such a knowledge of the phenomena in those fields as to 
be able to orient his problems in his new subject; but with optical phe- 
nomena and theories and the histology of nervous tissue he is not here 
immediately concerned. Whether a monist or a dualist in philosophic 
theory, his material is strictly the facts of consciousness. 

For the purpose of the psychologist the nervous mechanism may 
be regarded as a central mass of tissue with radiating threadlike pro- 
cesses extending to all parts of the body; he should loiow in a general 
way the anatomy of the brain and spinal cord, the distribution and 
accepted physiological function of the auxiliary ganglionic centers, the 
theory of the so-called sympathetic nervous system, the biological con- 
ception of the neurone elements of the tissue; he should also note the 
physiologist's classification of nerves as "afferent" and efferent »" the 
rather hypothetical division of the central brain mass into functional 
centers, and the common theories of "reflex action. " But as a psyholo- 



A Syllabus of Psychology 31 

gist he should not take these matters too seriously until he has entered 
critically into the province of his own science. 

A more interesting histological matter for the psychologist is the 
particular forms of end-organs of the nerves, especially the peripheral 
terminations of the "afferent sensor}^ nerves" by which he senses the 
outer world of physical facts. The tendency of modern biologists and 
physiological psychologists is to seek a special form of peripheral nerve 
ending for each particular mode of sensing the material environment, 
and also a special neuronic center at the inner end of such nerves. 

The theories of the relation of mind and body in human experience 
deal with a very attractive problem of philosophy, but they lie on the 
margin of our present field of study. They have, however, been given so 
large a place in recent psychological literature that the student will 
find it helpful to distinguish the leading types as a background of his 
studies. The theory of interaction postulates two distinct substantial 
entities, the mind and the body, which co-exist in such a manner that 
each is capable of acting upon the other or of being acted upon by the 
other. According to this theory the mind as a discrete factor in a dual 
being influences the body, and the body as a like factor influences the 
mind. Such casual connection is recognized between the two conceiv- 
ably independent existences as will enable mind states to produce body 
states and body states to produce mind states. The theory of parallel- 
ism asserts that while the mind and the body lie side by side in so intimate 
relation that each fact of the one is associated with a fact of the other, 
there is no casual connection between the two parallel series of facts, 
that is, a fact in neither series can cause a fact in the other. No attempt 
is made by the advocates of this theory to account for the synchronous 
variations of the phenomena of the two substances. In its simplest 
statement it is an agnostic acceptance of the concomitance of parallel 
lines of phenomena without the responsibility of explanation. A third 
theory is known as the double-aspect theory, which regards mental phe- 
nomena and bodily phenomena as distinguishable phases of a single 
substantial entity. In this view the mind is one aspect of a reality, 
and the body merely another aspect of the same reality. The casual 
sequence is viewed neither as two interlacing lines of events or as two 
relatively independent lines of paired events, but as a single line of events 
seen from two pomts of view; a mind-body entity produces mind-body 
phenomena. In addition to the three theories named the student will 
doubtless note in his reading various others, both dualistic and monistic ; 
but those instanced here mil serve as types in determining his own in- 
cipient theory. 

The second and third of the two theories stated above are frequently 
identified as the same theory: "psychophysical parallelism" is accepted 
as a loose formulation of what Bain has called the "theory of a double- 



32 A Syllabus of Psychology 

faced unity. '' Both theories are regarded as monistic in contrast to the 
first strictly duahstic theory of interaction. The student should note 
that while he is naturally at first inclined to accept the duaJistic theory, 
the movement of critical thought in our day is toward some form of 
monism. The phenomenal manifestations of ''mind" and ''body" are 
accepted as but two aspects of one world experience. In any event, he 
should know that as a student of Psychology he need give his allegiance 
to no theory of the philosophical conception of human experience; even 
in the farthest researches of " Physiological Psychology " one may be loyal 
to his science and be either a dualist or a monist in his philosophical 
theory. 

References 

Sully, Human Mind, Vol. I, pp. 36-38; Vol. II, pp. 366-369. 

Wundt, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 358-363. 

Titchener, Primer of Psychology, pp. 12-18. 

Titchener, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 360-364. 

Kulpe, Outlines of Psychology, p. 4. 

Stout, Manual of Psychology, pp. 34-35. 

Spiller, Mind of Man, pp. 323, 333. 

MitcheU, Structure and Growth of the Mind, pp. 1-24. 

Hoffding, Outlines of Psychology, p. 54 et seq. 

Robertson, Elements of Psychology, pp. 44-45. 

Strong, Why the Mind has a Body, ad lib. 

Bain, Mind and Body, p. 6 et seq. 

Ladd, Physiological Psychology, pp. 633-667. 

Ladd, Philosophy of Mind, p. 208 et seq. 

Ziehen, Introduction to the Study of Physiological Psychology, pp. 299-305. 

14. Three phases of a conscious experience. In his study of 
human life as revealed in personal consciousness the concrete facts which 
the psychologist seeks to describe and explain are the relatively discrete 
experiences which make up each individual life. He follows in his in- 
vestigations the analytic method of modern science, with the peculiarity — 
already noted in Section 4 — ^that the analysis of a psychological object 
is not a separating into parts, but a distinguishing by abstraction of 
phases of an indissoluble unity. An experience presents in the field of 
consciousness three well defined phases: self-expressive activity, ac- 
quisitive growth, and subjective valuing. Every person is immeaiatly 
aware of these aspects of the events of his life; and it is the primary pur- 
pose of the psychologist's critical study to give scientific definiteness to 
these three great categories of mental phenomena. The beginning student 
should, b}^ repeated introspective analysis of his own experiences, satisfy 
himself of the validity of this fundamental grouping of mental facts, and 
thus prepare himself for a more detailed study of psychic phenomena. 

Knowing, feeling, and willing (here named in the conventional order 
of treatment) are the chapter headings of the three great divisions of 
any systematic treatise on Psychology. As ''the Intellect," ''the Sen- 
sibility", and "the Will" they were to the older psychologists groups of 
faculties, " or "powers of the mind"; and in their expository treatment the 
mirid was partitioned into three divisions, whose separate functions were 



A Syllabus of Psychology 33 

subdivided with a logical consistency not warranted by observed facts. 
In such outlined formulations of the science it was customary, as is still 
too often the case in modern treatments, to give to the Intellect by far 
the larger share of consideration, leaving for the other two divisions scant 
treatment. While he follows the beaten trail, the student should not be 
misled by this partiality in dealing with the forms of mental life into 
undervaluing feeling and willing. He should guard himself, at least 
until he has acquired some facility in introspection, against giving the 
cognitive aspect of his life any priority either in genesis or importance. 
Life is much more than knowing; and each experience may be viewed with 
equal profit from the side of its activity, its possession of its environment, 
or its appreciative valuing. 

Aristotle's division of conscious life into knowing and willing was 
accepted almost unquestioned for more than two thousand years. Feel- 
ing was regarded as a vague form of knowing. In the eighteenth century 
the German psychologists differentiated the feeling phase of consciousness ; 
and Emmanuel Kant gave authoritative expression to the present tri- 
partite view of mind as intellect, sensibility and will. Rousseau's empha- 
sis upon the feeling phase of experience contributed much to the accept- 
ance of this new scheme of mental faculties. While the English psycholo- 
gists were ^slow to accept the classification of Kant, it was more readily 
accepted upon the continent and it has now universally superseded the 
earlier bipartite division. All attempts to derive these three aspects 
from a single root function of the mind, as from the will or the sensibility, 
have proved unsuccessful. 

The present three-fold classification of mental processes gives a very 
satisfactory working hypothesis, probably as consistent as the atomic 
theory of matter in Chemistry; but it need not be regarded as the final 
word by the well equipped research student. One of the most notable 
attempts to discover another basis for the functional analysis of psychoses 
is that of Professor Royce, in his Outline of Psychology. 

References 

Judd, Psychology, p. 66 et seq. 

Bain, Mental Science, pp. 2-3. 

Baldwin, Elements of Psychology, pp. 52-55. 

Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 35-41. 

Dewej", Psychology, pp. 15-25. 

Kulpe, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 18-22. 

Hoffding, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 87-100. 

SuUy, Human Mind, Vol. I, p. 59 et seq. Vol. II, pp. 327-329. 

Stout, Manual of Psychology, pp. 56-70. 

King, Rational Living, pp. 106-110. 



34 A Syllabus of Psychology 

Chapter V — Cognition 

15. Cognitive growth. A human life is a growth, presenting the 
two aspects of all biological growth: enlargement and organization. 
This is true not only of the mind-body organism as a unified whole ; it is 
equally true of the mind and the body separately as they are distinguished 
in common thought and in analytic science. The growing mind, abstract- 
ed for the purposes of science from its bodily concomitant, is enlarged by 
increasing its knowledge content and organized by the expressive recon- 
struction of itself in its experiences. The mind grows larger through the 
accumulation of knowledge; and it grows better in organic structure 
through its self-realizing activities. 

The term "larger" as here used should not suggest increase in vol- 
ume, of a material space-filling entity. It signifies merely greater abund- 
ance of qualities and resources, as when one through the cumulative 
character of experiencing is said to realize " Si larger life." 

The process of enlarging a mind by increasing its knowledge is known 
as "cognition" Cognition, as one of the three primary coordinate phases 
of mental life, is found in every experience, that is, there is no experience 
that does not add to the knowledge content of life. 

Cognition (from cognosco, to know) comprises the entire knowing 
aspect of consciousness, the mind's awareness of objective content. It 
is a common error, due doubtlessly to the artificial partitioning of the 
mental structure into ''faculties, " to restrict the term to the presentative 
elements of knowing, excluding the elaborative movements of Judgment 
and reasoning; but a consistent classification of mental functions natur- 
ally segregates in one group all those aspects of mental life whose dominant 
characteristic is satisfying interest in ''objects," and the term "object" 
designates as truly the demonstration of a geometric theorem as the 
finding of a dime in the street. "Thinking", in all its forms, is as truly 
cognitive as is "sense perception." 

Cognition is conditioned fundamentally upon a relation existing 
between states of consciousness and external reality. It is always object- 
seeking; and in its elementary forms it is a grasping of an outer trans- 
subjective world of reals by means of the bodily sense-organs. "In its 
higher forms in which the more complex elaborative processes of thinking 
supersede the mere sensing of the environment, it is still essentially an 
awareness of an object as distinguished from the knowing mind itself. 
There is no cognition that does not deal with objects in the field of con- 
sciousness. Cognition is a true life process, and it is, consequently, never 
a passive receiving of impressions from the environment; it is funda- 
mentally an active seeking of life materials that may be utilized in the 
growing mental entity. It should be noted, however, that there is no 
merely "perceptive cognition;" there is always a constructive building 
side to even the most elementary form of sense- impression. 



A Syllabus of Psychology 35 

Cognition is essentially conscious, that is, there is no such thing as 
^'unconscious knowdng. " While the human organism is continually ad- 
justing itself to its environment in thousands of activities in which there 
is no immediate awareness, psychologists restrict the term "cognition" 
to those adjustments which are given in consciousness. Cognition is 
conscious mental growth. 

A beginner in Psychology needs to guard himself against miscon- 
ception regarding the nature of '' knowledge. " Knowledge is not a pro- 
duct, but a process; it is not a static result of cognition, but it is cognition 
itself. It is a dynamic process both in its simplest perceptional form and 
in its most highly elaborated forms of reasoning. One's knowledge is 
not something that he has, something "stored up" in some wslj in a sort 
of mental granary, something conceived to have a kina of separate exis- 
tence apart from himself as its possessor and user; his knowledge is him- 
self, and it has its existence only in the actual processes of his growing 
life. Knowledge is the knowing phase of the mind and is identical with 
cognition. 

The question of the ultimate nature of knowledge, as dependent upon 
the reality of the external world ana of the means by which the indi- 
vidual mind is able to relate it to itself, belongs properly to the episte- 
mologist. As students of Psychology it is enough for us to know that we 
do know; and we may profitably confine our study to the processes of 
knowing as we find them given in our own consciousnesses. 

References 

Ladd, Outline of Descriptive Psychology, po. 308-311. 

Ladd, Philosophy of Mind, pp. 98-100. 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 216-220. 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 15, 81-84, 156-157. 

Stout, Manual of Psychology, pp. 56-59. 

Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, Vol. I, p. 80. 

Bowen, Hamilton's Metaphysics, pp. 268-272, 276. 

16. Knowing an external object. Considered as the reaction of 
the mind to the stimulating touch of its environment, the intellectual 
process by which an external object is apprehended exhibits the follow- 
ing details: (1) an impression (physical or chemical) upon the body 
mechanism; (2) a vague blanket affecting of the mind corresponding to 
the disturbed state of the body; (3) an attentive focalizing of conscious- 
ness in this new mental state; (4) a localizing of the focalized mental 
state, in a particular sense-organ; (5) a perceiving in the sense-organ of 
the knowledge elements corresponding to the stimulus; and (6) an ap- 
perceptive evaluating of these sensation elements in the life structure 
built up by previous experiencing. This gives us the following simple 
outline of 

The Knowing Process: 

1. Impression on the nervous mechanism, 

2. Sensation continuum. 



36 A Syllabus of Psychology 

3. Attention, 

4. Sensation, 

5. Perception, 

6. Apperception. 

Of these the first is rather a condition of the knowing than a part 
of the process itself. It may be regarded as a change wrought in the 
body medium through which the mind grasps the material world, and not 
as an immediate affair of the mind. It is, thus considered, merel}^ the 
effect of the causal action of some form of molecular vibration in the ex- 
ternal material world upon the no less material body. 

In its nascent stage a knowing process is a nebulous, undefined mental 
state, vaguely given in consciousness as more of a feeling tone than a 
cognitive fact. It is a true "sensation continuum," a sort of mental 
protoplasm out of which sensation elements are formed. By centering 
the conscious life in the blanket disturbance of the mental continuum 
occasioned by the impression on the nervous substance, the developing 
process is localized in a particular sense-organ, and the ''.sensation con- 
tinuum" is converted into ''sensations." Sensations are elemental 
mental processes that are given quality and intensity by being associated 
with particular end-organs of the nervous system. In "perception" 
these elemental factors are given objective reality as constructs in space 
and time — are attributed to the outer world as qualities of the physical 
objects acting upon the nerve end-organ. Perception identifies the 
psychic elements with the physical phenomena which give rise to them. 
In "apperception" the perceptions of external phenomena are inter- 
preted in terms of the existing results of previous experiences. The new 
conscious material is taken up into the mental structure through its re- 
lationships to material already there. Apperception is a species of 
mental assimilation by which the new perceptions find a place in the 
growing conscious life. The process of knowing an external object is 
completed in apperception, which gives conceptual meaning to the per- 
ceived attributes. 

In this brief tentative description of the process of knowing an object 
presented to the conscious life through the sense-organs, given here in 
anticipation of a more detailed statement in subsequent sections, there 
are two serious sources of misapprehension: first, it appears to imply 
a succession of steps in time; and second, it appears to find the origin 
of knowing in the action of the material outer world upon the mind through 
the medium of the body. 

The six detailed items given above do not constitute a succession of 
steps in a time series, that is, the impression on the body does not pre- 
cede in time the sensation state of the mind, and so throughout the list 
of elements. These six items are but distinguishable aspects of a single 
process, which may be abstracted for critical study, after the manner of 
all psychological analysis. 



A Syllabus of Psychology 37 

Knowing is essentially mental activity, both in its origin and in its 
development; it starts in the mind's reaching outward for larger life in 
possessing itself of its environment. The mind finds its environment 
through the medium of its body; it is not passively awakened by the 
environment. The branching nerves of the body structure with their 
sensitive end-organs hungrily seek for life materials, just as the tentacles 
of the medusa explore its environment for food. 

References 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 27-34, 159. 

Stout, I\Ianual of Psychologj', pp. 117-124. 

Betts, Mind and its Education, pp. 70-73. 

Lindner, Empirical Psychology, pp. 32-34. 

Buell, Essentials of Psychology, pp. 91, 94-95, 97-98. 

17. The three aspects of cognition. Cognition, as the entire 
knowledge phase of personal life, has three clearly distinguishable forms, 
or aspects: presentative, representative, and elaborative. These forms 
of cognition are not separate processes or modes of conscious activity 
that may exist independently of each other; there can be no presentative 
cognition that does not involve representation and elaboration, and 
similarly of each of the others. 

Once more the student should note that the analysis of a psychic 
fact is not a partition, but a discrimination of aspects. While a knowing 
process may be viewed as a presentation, a representation, or an elabora- 
tion, it is in every case all of these. 

References 

Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 80-81. 
Murray, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 137-138. 
Roark, Psychology in Education, pp. 67, 79, 98. 
Snyder, Psychology and the Psychosis, Intellect, pp. 54-59. 
Baker, Elementary Psycholog>^, pp. 52-57, 73-77, 108-112. 

Presentative Knowing. 

18. Presentative t^hase of cognition. Presentative knowing, 
or '' simple apprehension," depends upon the relation of the knowing 
mind to the objects of knowledge. It is an acquisitive process, enlarging 
life by bringing to it elemental knowledge materials. The active mind 
grasps the phenomena of its material environment through, the medium 
of the body mechanism. It presents the outer world before itself in con- 
sciousness, and thus constantly lengthens the radius of its sphere; it 
finds its larger self in this conquest over the surrounding world of facts. 
It presents to itself, or before itself, the physical world by presenting in 
itself facts of its otvti activities and states. Presentative cognition in- 
cludes Sensation and Perception, as the subjective and objective phases 
of the process. 

The presentative aspect of cognition is characterized by the bring- 
ing to notice of a definite object of knowledge; it presents (brings before, 
prae-esse^ to be before) to consciousness a state of mind originating 
primarily in the bodily contact with the material environment. In 



38 A Syllabus of Psychology 

presentative knowing a mental state becomes present in consciousenss, 

and thus becomes an ''object of knowledge." The student should note 

that it is not the material object of the outer world that is presented in 

consciousness, but the state of the mind. Presentation is a modification 

of consciousness, and the object cognitively "presented" is a state of the 

mind itself. 

References 

Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 80-81. 

Sully, Human Mind, Vol. I, p. 63, note. 

Stout, Analytical Psychology, Vol. I, p. 47. 

Baker, Elementary Psychology, p. 52. 

Bowens, Hamilton's Metaphysics, p. 268 et seq. 

Ladd, Psychology Descriptive and Explanatory, p. 231. 

Robertson, Elements of Psychology, Index. 

Morgan, Psychology for Teachers, pp. 12, 66. 

19. Sensation. Sensation is a primar}^ state of consciousness, 
originating in the relation of the mind to its material environment and 
furnishing the means from the side of the mind by which the persona^ life 
relates itself to its surroundings. " Sensation is the common ground upon 
which the self and the non-self come together." All knowledge has its 
origin in sensation; 'Hhere is nothing in the mind that is not first in the 
senses." While it is convenient to speak of sensation as "a state of 
consciousness," it must be understood that all "states" of consciousness 
are active, rather activities. Sensitiveness to environment, or using the 
term of more significance sensation '\^ an essential characteristic of mind; 
in its present state as embodied spirit mind is actively alive to all the 
world about it, finding its life in its lowest terms in sensation. 

20. What sensations are. Sensations are the elements of conscious 
life, the rudimentary forms of all cognition of the external world. As 
mental activities they originate in impressions made upon the outer ends 
of the sensory nerves by the material environment of the body. They 
are the materials out of which the higher forms of thought and feeling are 
elaborated. "Sensations are not knowledge any more than wool is cloth; 
they are the raw material out of which knowledge is slowly spun." — 
Halleck. 

Three components are distinguishable in the process of knowing the 
material environment : the active mind, the body medium, and the physi- 
cal stimulus. From the side of the mind as it seeks self-realization, it 
may be said to 'find the physical object in a state of the body organ'; 
or from the side of the material environment as it impinges upon the 
sensitive end-organ of the body, it may be said to 'cause the mental 
state'. In either view the fact is the same, the states or processes of the 
mind associated with states or processes of the body in particular nerve 
structures and conditioned upon contact with physical objects aiC the 
ultimate elements of all conscious life. Titchener's definition of a sensa- 



A Syllabus of Psychology 39 

tion (with slight verbal alteration) is the best: '^ A sensation is an ele- 
mental conscious process connected with a body process in a particular 
body organ." 

While it is convenient for the purposes of scientific explanation to 
recognize the material stimulant and the bodily state as constituents in 
the knowing process, it should be understood that a sensation is purely 
a psychic fact ; it is a fact of conscious life manifested in the body structure 
in its relation to its material environment. 

In opposition to the view that all conscious life is elaborated out of 
sensations, some, notably the Scotch philosophers of a generation ago, 
have held that certain fundamental concepts are given directly to the 
mind by ''intuition". In this use of the term intuition (note that it has 
another use also) it denotes a "power of the mind which gives us ideas 
and truths not furnished by the senses, nor elaborated by the understand- 
ing". Among the knowledge thought to be obtained thus are the con- 
cepts of space and time. Modern psychologists generally reject this 
view^, maintaining that all such ideas are empirically built up through 
experience of the material world in the medium of the body. 

The student should note that while we speak here of sensations as 
cognitive elements merely, they are the elements of all phases of conscious 
life, including its affections and volitions as well as its cognitions. Sensa- 
tions are related to experiences in the analytic study of the psychologist 
as elements are to compounds in the study of Chemistry; both chemical 
elements and psychic elements (sensations) are, however, to be regarded 
as artificial abstractions for the purposes of the sciences, rather than real 
entities. 

References 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 27-46. 

Bowne, Introduction to Psychological Theory, pp. 39-45. 

Ladd, Outline of Descriptive Psychology, p. 168 et seq. 

SuUy, Human Mind, p.' 206. 

Kulpe, Outline of Psychology, p. 29. 

21. Kinds of sensations. Sensations are classified naturally 
according to the sense-organs employed as Visual Sensations, Auditory 
Sensations, etc. It is a tenet of modern Biology, accepted alike by phys- 
iologists and psychologists, that each distinguishable life movement has 
its special form of nerve ending; thus, the retina of the eye is a nerve end 
specially fitted for sensing the vibratory movements of matter known to 
the physicist as light, and so of each of the other "special sense organs. 
The sense organs sort out the various forms of molecular stimulations 
and give endless kaleidoscopic variety to the elements of mental structure. 

Visual Sensations are mental processes associated with body processes 
in the peripheral ending of the optic nerve, that is, they are conscious 
states localized in the retina. The cognitive phase of these sensations 
gives perceptions of "brightness" and "color." Many interesting de- 
tails have been worked out experimentally concerning these two sub- 
classes of visual sensations; but in general such studies are matters of 



40 A Syllabus of Psychology 

Physics and Physiology rather than Psychology. The dependence of 
brightness and color upon mixed and pure light or complementary color 
relations is of only incidental interest to the student of Psychology, whose 
special field of investigation is consciousness. 

Auditory Sensations originate in the stimulation of the peripheral 
end of the auditory nerves by molecular vibrations. Sounds, as psychic 
facts, are distinguished as 'Hones" and "noises," corresponding roughly 
to the distinction of ''colors" and "brightnesses" in eye sensations. 

Other sensation elements, dependmg for their aistinction upon an 
imperfectly known variation in nerve endings, are Olfactory, Gustatory, 
Tactile, Thermal, etc. While many interesting problems relating to the 
various kinds of sensations are invesigated in " Physiological Psychology, 
a list of the arbitrarily distinguished kinds of sensation elements is of 
little value to the student of general Psychology. For our present pur- 
poses it is sufficient to know that there is a growing tendency to add to 
the conventionally accepted "five senses" other forms of "special senses". 
Doubtless the discrimination of kinds of sense elements is as limitless as 
the discovery of new "elements" by the research students of Chemistry; 
but it may be questioned whether there is not in both cases an unwarran- 
ted divorcing of states that are not essentially dissimilar. 

Physiologists and psychologists generally distinguish between sensa- 
tions originating in the periphery of the body mechanism in the stimu- 
lation of nerves from without and the so-called "organic sensations" 
originating in states of the body in its internal structure. While such a 
classification of sensations may, in our limited knowledge of the facts, 
be convenient for the purposes of description and explanation, it can never 
be a definite one. Every impression made upon a particular organ of the 
body with its consequent mental disturbance of consciousness as a whole 
and probably every organic affection of the whole organism may be localiz- 
ed in particular structures. 

The attempts by some psychologists to discover a common ground for 
the various senses, a primordial sense out of which they have been func- 
tionally differentiated, have much the same theoretical interest for be- 
ginning students as the similar attempts in the field of Chemistry to re- 
duce the eighty-odd elements to a single element in distinguishable 
forms. "Attempts at unifying the senses have been chiefly made in two 
quarters. Spencer assumes a primitive shock as the origin of all sense 
systems; while Horwicz traces every primary or secondary system back 
to the primitive sense of pain." — Spiller. . 

The human race have developed the end organs of the optic nerves 
through their functional use to such a degree of perfection and to such 
a primacy among the means of intellectual life that the race may truly 
be said to be "eye minded." The perfection of written language as a 
means of cognitive gro^vth doubtless contributes much to this exaltation 
of seeing as a mode of living. Hearing ranks next to seeing in the per- 
fection of the senses, the gamut of tones comparing very favorably with 
the spectrum of colors. All the other possible modes of sensing the 
material environment are undervalued in the partiality for seeing and 
hearing. Proper cultivation of the sense of touch would doubtless add 



A Syllabus of Psychology 41 

largely to the volume and grace of human life; and tasting and smelling 
are certainly worthy as means of life of more consideration than they re- 
ceive. A gamut of tastes may in a more highly developed human Ufe of 
the future supersede the unscientific conventional ''sweet, bitter, acid 
and salt," or ''pleasant and unpleasant." Smelling, the scullion the 
household of the senses, but awaits the wand of the fairy godmother of a 
more critical age to take her true place among her sisters. 

References 

Royce, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 129-136. 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 50-80. 

Titchener, Textbook of Psychology, pp. 55-200. 

Stout, Manual of Psychology, pp' 134-198. 

Wenzlaff, The Mental Man, pp. 136-142. 

Lindner, Empirical Psychology, pp. 41-61. 

Ladd, Primer of Psychology, pp. 34-43. 

Angell, Psychology, pp. 91-113. 

Baldwin, Elements of Psychology, pp. 87-103, 

Spiller, Mind of Man, pp. 50-58. 

22. Threshold of sensation. When the psychological activity due 
to the stimulation of a sensory end-organ is just sufficient to claim con- 
scious attention the sensory state is said to be "at the threshold." 
The "threshold of sensation" is thus the line of demarkation between 
conscious and unconscious relation to the effect of the stimulating touch 
of the phj^sical environment. It is the state of mental disturbance, due 
to the impression of the physical object upon the peripheral end of a 
sensory nerve, when the stimulation is just sufficient to give rise to con- 
scious adjustment. 

Sensations vary in intensity with variations in the stimuli, the 
stronger stimulus generally giving rise to the more intense sensation. A 
very weak stimulus, while it doubtless affects the general tone of the 
mental life, does not so focus attention upon the disturbance as to give 
content to consciousness. There appears to be a kind of inertia in the 
material nerve structure, in overcoming which a portion of the molecular 
irritation is expended, with a consequent impeding of the mind's cogni- 
tive apprehension of physical objects. There are doubtless innumerable 
modifications of the mental structure, originating in the impigning of 
the environment upon the body structure, in which there is no conscious- 
ness ; it is only when the ringing of the body doorbell, as it might be called, 
is insistent enough to secure attention that the sensory state claims an 
audience in the forum of consciousness. Bowne says, "Consciousness is 
something which results from psychical activity when it reaches a certain 
degree of intensity, called the "threshold". 

The threshold of sensation has also been called the "threshold of 
consciousness," "threshold of excitation," "threshold of impressionabili- 
ty", "threshold of awareness, " etc. ; and it is uncritically applied to either 



42 A Syllabus of Psychology 

the degree of the stimulus or the degree of the mental state, though . 
strictly it designates a just noticeable degree of sensation. 

References 

Sully, Human Mind, pp. 87-88. 

Villa, Contemporary Psychology, pp. 143-146, 296. 

McKendrick and Snodgrass, Psychology of the Senses, p. 37. 

Jastrow, The Subconscious, pp. 413-418. 

Lindner, Empirical Psychology, pp. 35-41. 

Witmer, Analytical Psychology, pp. 25-26. 

Spiller, Mind of Man, pp. 47-49. 

Titchener, Textbook of Psychology, pp. 201-224. 

Royce, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 267-268. 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 534-549. 

23. Quantity of sensations. An attempt to work out a mathe- 
matical relation between amounts of stimulus and amounts of sensation 
led to the formulation of the ''Weber-Fechner Law," the first great law 
of psychophysics, discovered by Weber but given definite formulation by 
Fechner. The basic idea in this law is that "the intensity of a sensation 
is a function of the intensity of its stimulus. " The formal statement is, 
"Sensations increase in arithmetic progression as their stimuli increase 
in geometric progression", or "Sensations vary as the logarthms of their 
stimuli." 

This law is based upon the assumptions (1) that mental states are 
measurable and (2) that the differences in amounts of a particular sensa- 
tion are constant units. The first assumption is thought to be demanded 
by the requirement of positive science that all exact study of data result 
in mathematical formulation of laws, hence sensations must be dealt 
with mathematically in some system or other. The second assumption, 
that just noticeable differences in the intensity of a sensation are uniform, 
that is, starting with a conscious sensation state and increasing it until 
it is perceptibly "more", and again until it is "more," and so on through 
a series of perceptibly different states, quantitative steps from state to 
state are mathematically equal. There is probably also a third assump- 
tion in the minds of most who recognize this law, though not essential to 
it, that there is a true causal connection between the physical stimulus 
and the psychic state, that is, that the stimulus "causes" the sensation 
and that there is a consequent necessarj^ mathematical relation between 
the varying stimulus and the varying sensation. 

As to the question of "mental measurement" it is well for the be- 
ginner in psychology to accept the Scotch verdict of "not proved" and 
to leave the case, for the present at least, as non-suited. Munsterberg 
denies strenuousl}^ that there can be any quantitative dealing with psy- 
chic facts, asserting that "the psychic series is purely qualitative." 

Further, if the first assumption be granted, it is still to be shown that 
sensations increase by regular unit steps. This is not only not proved 
but introspection appears to be incapable of offering any evidence in the 
case. 



A Syllabus of Psychology 43 

To assume, in the third place, that mental states are "caused" is 
to deny spontaneity in mental action, introducing into the field of Psy- 
chology an abstraction from the field of Physics and making all spiritual 
life mechanical. 

This law, which is of doubtful validity and certainly of little inter- 
est to the beginning student in General Psychology, is often heralded 
as the great charter of ''psj^chophysics, " marking the ''beginning of 
scientific Psychology." Thus Titchener in his Textbook of Psychology 
page 223, finds in it the prophesy of a mathematical Psychology. He 
says: "Indeed, while little has been done in comparison with what .still 
remains to do, there is no doubt that, in principle, ever}^ single problem 
that can now be set in Psychology may be set in quantitative form. The 
psychological textbooks of the next century will be as full of formulas as 
the textbooks of Phj^sics are today.'' On the other hand, Munsterberg 
says, "A mathematical psychology is impossible"; and he regards the 
law as " dealing wdth physiological facts only. " See also James's estimate 
of the value of this law in the first volume of his Principles of Psychology, 
page 549 and preceding discussion. 

References 

Titchener, Textbook of Psychology, pp. 215-223. 

Stout, Manual of Psychology, pp. 199-209. 

Wenzlaff, The Mental Man, pp. 143-145. 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 533-549. 

James, Briefer Com-se in Psychology, pp. 16-24. 

SpiUer, Mind of Man, pp. 31-34. 

Witmer, Analytical Psychology, pp. 204-218. 

Sanford, Expermiental Psychology, pp. 333-362. 

I<add, Elements of Physiological Psychology, pp. 356-381. 

Ladd, Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory, pp. 136-140. 

Judd, Psychology, pp. 128-130. 

Myers, Textbook in Experimental Psychology, pp. 201-255. 

Wundt, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 281-287. 

Ribot, German Psychology of Today, pp. 134-187. 

Villa, Contemporary Psychology, pp. 137-152. 

24. Localizing sensations in the body structure. Sensations 
are consciously localized in particular parts of the body, — are referred to 
particular end-organs in which they originate, — are given nativity in 
definite regions of the body world. The differential quality of a sensation 
by virtue of which ii: is localized in the process of preception is called its 
"local sign". "By a local sign is understood that peculiar coloring of 
a sensation which depends, not on the outer object as such, but on the 
direction of its attack against the periphery of the sensory nerves." 
— Lindner. "Local signature is that differential quality of a sensation 
which varies with the part of the sensitive surface stimulated and not with 
the nature of the stimulus. " — Stout. The local sign is the characteristic 
of a sensation by which the unified self localizes it in that part of its body 
structure in which it originates, and thus in perception projects it outward 
to its physical excitant in the material environment. 

James, with his usual clearness and consistent loyalty to Psychology 
in its own field, makes an effective protest against cumbering the concep- 



44 A Syllabus of Psychology 

tion of the "local sign" with theories of space perception. The existence 
of a peculiar quality of a sensation by virtue of which it is associated with 
a local affection of the body is not primarily a matter of space, and it 
may be accepted by the student as a sort of local stamp or organ signature 
which gives it value in the constructive life movement. While it is 
''where" in the body, it is ''what" in the mind. 

While the local sign of a sensation is in general sufficiently definite 
to cause a ready reference of the mental state to the organ stimulated, 
it is by no means uncommon for a second, or "concomitant sensation," 
to originate in the same stimulation, that is, two sensations accompany 
the impression made upon one end-organ, one referred directly to "the 
region affected and the other to some other region or organ. The most 
common forms of this " synaesthesia " are known as "photism" and 
"phonism". They are an interesting subject of psychological inquiry 
as yet but little understood. 

References 

Lindner, Empirical Psychology, pp. 68-70. 

Titchcner, Outline of Psychology, pp. 167-169. 

Titchener, Textbook of Psychology, pp. 194-200. 

Ribot, German Psychology of Today, pp. 68-95. 

Stout, Manual of Psychology, p. 332. . 

Ladd, OutUne of Descriptive Psychology, pp. 179-181. 

Ladd, Elements of Physiological Psychology, pp. 386-387, 396-398. 

Ladd, Primer of Psychology, p. 50. 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. II, pp. 155-166. 

Wundt, Outlines of Psychology, p. 116. 

Hoffding, Outhnes of Psychology, p. 200. 

Murray, Introduction to Psychology, p. 359. 

Wenzlaff, The Mental Man, p. 147. 

Buell, Essentials of Psychology, pp. 74-76. 

Sanford, Experimental Psychology, pp. 1-2. 

Witmer, Analytical Psychology, pp. 110-113. 

Baldwin, Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology. 

25. Centrally aroused sensations. Two modes of origin of sen- 
sations may be distinguished: the action of external stimuli upon the 
peripheral end-organs of the nervous system, and internal stimuli acting, 
as exciting causes operating directly upon cortical areas of the brain 
Titchener says, "Sensations may be aroused centrally as well as peripher- 
ally," and "they are just as much sensations in the former case as in the 
latter." Again he says, "Sensations arise in two ways: from peripheral 
stimulation (flash of yellow hght) and from central excitation (remem- 
brance or imagination of yellow)"; and "a remembered 'yellow' and a 
seen 'yellow' are just the same as sensations, as 'yellows'." To get the 
full significance of these statements of Professor Titchener we must bear 
in mind his definition of sensations, "Sensations are those elemental 
conscious processes which are connected with bodily processes in definite 
bodily organs." This certainly means that when one sees a dandelion 
in imagination he uses the retina in a similar wa^^ to his use of it when he 
sees it in the direct stimulation of the physical light vibrations, though 
Titchener says, "the bodily processes connected with the remembered 



A Syllabus of Psychology 45 

yellow and the imagined cold are central only^ not peripheral." How- 
ever, if we accept the slogan of modern psychology, ''no psychosis without 
neurosis," and the conception of sensations as those elemental conscious 
states into which all cognitive processes can in ultimate analysis be re- 
solved, we are constrained to believe that the ear, as the peripheral ter- 
mination of the auditory nerve, is employed in remembering a strain 
of music in a way quite similar, if not identical, to the way in which it 
is emploj'^d in hearing the strain from physical sound vibrations outside 
the body. Certainly in imaging in reproductive imagination the odor of 
concord grapes, close attention to the process ^ill discover on its body 
side a sniffing like that in actively smelling the grapes held in the hand. 

Sensations are classified by Hy slop in his Syllabus of Psychology in two 
great classes with their subdivisions as follows: 1. Peripheral sensations, 
those initiated by stimuli external to the sensorium, though not necessari- 
ly to the body, including (a) Epi-peripheral sensations which originate 
on the external surface of the body, and (b) Ento-peripheral sensations 
which originate at points on the internal surface of the body; 2. Central 
sensations, those originating in general unlocalized body states or in 
mental activities spontaneously initiated, including (a) General vital 
feelings of vigor or depression, etc., (b) After images in the continuation 
of the sensation after the stimulus has been removed, (c) Dreams as re- 
productions of images and feelings not directly tracable to external stimu- 
lation of the nervous mechanism, (d) Hallucinations in persistent re- 
production of images from central abnormal states, and (e) Deliria in 
images and feelings due to diseased states or artificial stimulants. While 
this classification is somewhat artificial and not strictly psychological, 
it is quite suggestive. The real question is. Do some sensations originate 
in states of the boay and others originate in activities of the mind? The 
philosophical questions of the spontaneity of the mind and the inter- 
action of mind and body are involved here. 

Is the fact that a. person without retinal endings of the optic nerves, 
as through surgical extirpation of the eyeballs after experience with 
perfect eyes had given him color concepts, can see the colors in his im- 
agination satisfactory proof that all remembered sensations are limited 
on their physiological side to the brain cortex? Do the stumps of the 
nerves still participate in the "seeing" process? What is the psycho- 
logical explanation of the itching in the toes of an amputated limb? 

Stout denies the name ''sensation" to elemental mental states in 
memory because they differ in some important respects from similar 
states originating in physical excitation of peripheral end-organs; but 
are not the points of similarity in such states to what are called "sensa- 
tions proper" sufficient to justify us in including them in the same class? 
It should not be forgotten that "sensations" in modern Psychology are 
abstractions apparently necessitated by the analytical study of a mental 
structure. They are the simplest conceivable aspects of life, involving 
both mental activity and concomitant bodily states. The mind works 
in the body, and for the purposes of the psychologist the space distinction 
between the outer and the inner end of a nerve is unimportant. 



46 A Syllabus of Psychology 

The ability to produce definite bodily states at will is doubtless to 
prove a rich field for experimental study for careful unprejudiced inves- 
tigators. Dr. John Hunter, the great prophet of modern medicine, said 
two generations ago, ^'I am confident that I can fix my attention to any 
part until I have a sensation in that part; " and a later eminent American 
physician, D. Hack Tuke, said, "There is no sensation, whether general 
or special, excited by agents acting upon the body from without which 
cannot be excited also from within by emotional states affecting the 
sensory centers, such sensations being referred by the mind to the point 
at which the nerves terminate in the body." 

References 

Titchener, Outline of Psychology, pp. 36, 108, 131-132. 

Titchener, Primer of Psychology, pp. 95-96. 

Ladd, Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory, p. 95. 

Ladd, Primer of Psychology, pp. 33-34. 

Halleck, Education of the Central Nervous System, pp. 213-214. 

Stout, Groundwork of Psychology, p. 37. 

Stout, Manual of Psychology, pp. 119-120. 

Shoup, Mechanism and Personality, p. 86. 

Kulpe, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 169-224. 

Wundt, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 42-43. 

Gordy, New Psychology, pp. 166-171. 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. II, pp. 68-75. 

James, Briefer Course in Psychology, pp. 310-311. 

26. Nature of perception. Perception is direct apprehension of 
the external world in the senses. It is the process of taking the outer 
world to one's self through the organs of sense; and since it is immediate 
kno^ving of the 'Hhings" of the material environment, it has been called 
"thing-knowledge." Experience begins in the mind's conscious relation 
to some thing; with Kant an act of perceptual knowledge was purely a 
conscious relation between an individual mind and an individual object^ 
that is, perception gives direct knowledge of discrete things. In per- 
ception we may discriminate the apparently paradoxical dual process 
of setting objects of sense apart from ourselves an*d at the same time of 
uniting them to ourselves. The "world of things" is given in perception 
separate objective existence and is also made an inseparable part of our 
own existence as a perceiving subject. We project the thing from us 
while grasping it back to us, as a child plays with a return-ball toy. Per- 
ception thus creates a world of objects out of a world of conscious states. 

Without entering into the general question of the theory of know- 
ledge the student may accept in his theory of perception an actually 
present world of separate things distinct from himself as a knowing mind, 
which things he is able to unite with himself in a process of growth. He 
should look upon perception as a constructive appropriation of life ma- 
terials from an external world of real distinct objects. 

References 

^^'ard, Article in Encyclopaedia Britannica. 

Bowne, Introduction to Psychological Theory, pp. 253-268. 

Ladd, Elements of Physiological Psychology, pp. 382-419. 



A Syllabus of Psychology 47 

Ladd, Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory, pp. 89-95, 318-322. 

Ladd, Outlines of Descriptive Psvchology, pp. 58-60, 168-173. 

Ladd, Philosophy of Knowledge, pp. 148-149, 224-227, 250-251. 

Calkins, Peisistent Problems of Philosophy, p. 423. 

Calkins, Introduction to Psychologv, pp. 169-184. 

PoweU, Truth and Error, pp. 226-236. 

Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 82-85, 116-144. 

Baldwin, Elements of Psychology, pp. 111-127. 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. II, pp. 1-8, 76-81. \ 

James, Briefer Course in Psychology, pp. 12-16, 312-315. 

Hoffding, Outhnes of Psychology, pp. 101-107, 121-130. 

Robertson, Elements of Psvchologv, pp. 94-99. 

Sully, Human Mind. Vol. I, pp. 81-82, 206-215. 

Murray, introduction to Psvchology, pp. 139-145. 

Mitchell, Structure and Growth of the Mind, pp. 213-217. 

Spiller, Mind of IMan, pp. 174-175. 

Titchener, Outline of Psychology, pp. 33-36, 158. 

27. Perception distinguished from sensation. The charac- 
teristic difference between a sensation and a perception is that a sensa- 
tion is purely a subjective modification of consciousness whereas a per- 
ception always relates to an object. Sully defines perception as 'Hhe 
process of localizing sensations and referring them to definite objects." 
It is in perception that sensations are given meaning and converted into 
knowledge. Pure sensation, so far as it may be said to exist, is affective 
rather than cognitive, a state of consciousness due to the action of an 
external stimulus upon a sense-organ; it is a continuum of feeling tone, 
rather than a definite cognitive movement; it is a subjective state, which 
perception converts into awareness of the external object that gives rise 
to it. In perception sensation elements are built up into presentations 
of an outer world, which is thus constructively taken possession of as 
life materials. This "grasping of the outer world through the sense- 
organs" is a process of growth in which the mind constructs in itself 
a larger content of knowledge out of primordial sensation states. 

There is a definiteness of life in perception that is not reached in 
sensation. In sensation the mind accepts impartially the various affec- 
tions of its substance by the environment impinging upon the end-organs 
of its bodily concomitant, adjusting itself somewhat passively to the 
constant augmenting of its current; in perception it selects particular 
states for use in its own structure, so attending to them as to give them 
definiteness and permanence in the organic life, and permitting others 
to fade into the marginal field or to drop below the threshold of conscious ■ 
ness, never to have value in true cognition. In perception a particular 
sensation element is attended to, isolated from the general sensation 
continuum, and presented to the unified consciousness as a determining 
center of its activities. Perception is thus the beginning of a self- con- 
trolled gro\\i:h bj' attentive selection of the materials and form of the 
growth. 



48 A Syllabus of Psychology 

In perception a mental state is identified in terms of the concepts 
originating in previous experiences. While a sensation state exists 
without significance in the life current, in perception the sensation of the 
present is structurally related to the past. The meaning which percep- 
tion gives to sensation depends upon the revival in consciousness of 
previous experiential supplements. Perception is a process of interpret- 
ing sensations -by means of concepts; and it is the memory concept that 
gives value to the present sensation state. 

Sensations as distinguishable aspects of mental life are purely sub- 
jective, that is, there is in them no conscious acceptance of an outer 
world of objects; in perception on the contrary, the individualized sensa- 
tion is projected outward by means of its ''local sign'' to the world of 
environing things. Thus, the sensation of yellowness is by perception 
referred to the dandelion that occasions it, and we say, "The dandelion 
is yellow." "Local signs" are marks of sensations due to association 
with particular modifications of end-organs, which cause the mind to 
project its own states out to the material object sensed. Thus, the 
"yellow sensation" is known as a "yellow object" in space. 

References 

Lindner, Empirical Psychology/ pp. 68-70. 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. II, pp. 1-43, 76-82. 

James, Briefer Course in Psychology, p. 212. 

Snider, Psychology and the Psychosis, Intellect, pp. 56-59. 

Bowen, Hamilton's Metaphysics, pp. 313-326. 

Angell Psychology, pp. 118-123. 

Royce, Outhnes of Psychology, pp. 119-147. 

Baldwin, Elements of Psychology, pp. 83, 111. 

Wenzlaff, The Mental Man, pp. 136, 158-161. 

Bain, Mental Science, pp. 27, 197-214, Appendix 94-95. 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 81, 156-162. 

Calkins, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 103, 169-184. 

Brooks, Mental Sciencce, pp. 85-98. 

Halleck, Psychology, and Psychic Cultm-e, pp. 59-61, 66-68. 

Betts, Mind and its Education, pp. 70-87. 

Salibsury, Theory of Teaching, pp. 86-92. 

28. The "outer world" as given in perception. The student of 
General Psychology need not concern himself with the philosophical 
problem as to whether the apple which I "see" on the plate before me is 
''a mere modification of my consciousness or a real existence." For 
him, at least, the world of matter exists as "si permanent possibility of 
sensations." He may without compromising his philosophical position 
admit the reality of the world of 'Hhings," and may limit his theoretical 
inquiry in this direction to the question of how the thing differs from his 
idea of it. The thing is perceived directly in the sensations to which 
it gives rise, and a person knows no more of the world of material things 
than his organs of sense mediate for him. A ''thing," for the psycholo- 
gist at least, is not ''a mere group of sensations"; a thing is a fact of the 
environing world, and sensations are elements of personal experience. 
The sensation of redness is not to be identified with the molecular motion 
in the skin of the apple; qualities of the material object and activities 



A Syllabus of Psychology 49 

of the mind should be sharply distinguished as belonging to two aspects 
of experience. I perceive the vibrations of the substance of the apple 
as ''red" and thus find a ''cause" in the outer fact of the material world 
for the inner fact of my sensation. It is essential to perception that the 
object known shall stand opposed to the knowing mind. In perception 
the mind isolates itself from the world of things which it perceives, setting 
the thing perceived over against itself as an admitted "cause" of its 
sensation states. To perceive the redness of the apple is to find a cause 
in the outer world for the sensation originating in my relation to it. 

This admitting of a world of "real things" to be grasped in sense- 
perception does not commit the psychologist to a dualistic theory of the 
universe; he may still be a monistic idealist and accept for the purposes 
of bis science the separation of the known thing from the knowing mind. 
Psychology, like all other descriptive and explanatory sciences, is not a 
study of "reality," but of reality as transformed for its special purposes. 
It hypostatizes a world of real objects separate from the world of knowing 
minds, and it seeks to explain mental activities as originating in the re- 
lation of the active minds to these objects. 

References 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 218-220. 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 159-162. 

Pearson, Grammar of Science, pp. 47-53. 

Fullerton, Introduction to Philosophy, pp. 32-58. 

Bain, Mental Science, pp. 198, 202-214. 

Titchener, Textbook of Psychology, pp. 9-13. 

Snider, Psychology and the Psychosis, pp. 62-70. 

Krauth-Floming, Vocabulary of Philosophy, under "Matter". 

Baldwin, Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, under "Matter". 

29. Perception a constructive process. A perception is not a 
mere aggregation of sensations; it is an elaborative building process- 
Perception is active; in it the mind realizes itself in conscious activity. 
In perception it centers itself attentively in a chosen mode of action and 
acquiring experience materials and initiating constructive growth. Thus 
seeing is not a mere mechanical photographing of physical phenomena; 
it is an active associative appropriation of life substances. 

In insisting on the active character of perception it is not implied 
by contrast that sensations are mere passive "states" of consciousness. 
Sensations also are active. All aspects of mind are active; and there 
is evidently a possibility of error in Ladd's statement that, "We have 
sensations; but we perceive objects." It should not be forgotten that 
perception and sensation are but the objective and the subjective aspects 
of presentative knowing, and are essentially active processes. 

In direct opposition to this view of the active character of perception 
see Davis's discussion on pages 94 and 95 of his Elements of Psychology 
He concludes with these words: "Perception, then, relatively to its ob- 
jects, is an affection, not an action; a capacity, not a faculty. In it, the 
mind receives impressions without being able to reject or to modify them; 



50 A Syllabus of Psychology 

it does not act, but is acted on: it does not affect, but is affected. In 
perception my state is merely receptive; I am strictly passive." 

References 

Stout, Analytical Psychology, Vol. II, pp. 65-72. 

Stout, Manual of Psychology, pp. 246, 255, 263-268. 

Salisbury, Theory of Teaching, pp. 86-92. 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 157-158. 

Angell, Psychology, pp. 138-140. 

Morgan, Psychology, for Teachers, pp. 93-94, 113-114. 

Snider, Psychology and the Psychosis, Intellect, pp. 118-160. 

Mitchell, Structure and Growth of the Mind, pp. 281 et seq. 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. II, pp. 1-2, 76-82. 

Rogers, Modern Philosophy, pp. 242-248. 

Putnam, Textbook of Psychology, pp. 60-62. 

Halleck, Psychology and Psychic Culture, pp. 66-84. 

30. Illusory perception. While we readily accept the opinion that 
our senses may in general be depended upon to give us a true report of 
phenomena of the outer world as they affect our nervous substance, we 
no less readily admit that we often err in perceiving that which does not 
exist in such phenomena. A sensation state is often the source of illusion 
in perception. These illusions are of many kinds and are traceable to a 
great variety of physical, physiological, and psychical facts, as when one 
sees a straight stick partially submerged in a bowl of water as a bent 
stick, or hears a tone in the "after sensation" when the "physical sound" 
has ceased, or sees a ghost in a white stump after listening to "ghost 
stories". Without concerning himelf with the philosophical question of 
the "reality of the outer world as separate from the percipient mind", 
the student may accept the view that these "false perceptions" are as 
facts of psychic experience true perceptions. Gurney's emphatic state- 
ment that, "Every psychological phenomenon that takes the character 
of a sense-impression is a sense-impression" is scientifically exact, that is, 
what one "sees" he sees in the meaning of psychology, not merely "imag 
ines that be sees." Perceiving is but interpreting sensation states, and 
it is not essential to the validity of the process that the source of these 
states should conform to certain common conventional modes of contact 
of the body mechanism with its material environment. 

The various forms of "illusory prception" are an interesting field 
of study, for example, the student may introsepctively Avatch his atti- 
tude toward his perception in the Aristotle experiment of rolling a small 
marble between the crossed ends of his first and second fingers. I have 
myself for years enjoyed questioning my friends about perceiving a gre^n 
sunset sky as "blue " because the sky is conventionally known to be blue. 

References 

Parish, Hallucinations and Illusions, ad lib. 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. II, pp. 85-106, 243-268. 

James, Briefer Course in Psychology, pp. 317-325. 

Sully, Human Mind, Vol. II, p. 3l2. 

Ladd, Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory, pp. 370-375. 



A Syllabus of Psychology 51 

Witmer, Analytical Psychology, Index "Illusions" 

Sanford, Experimental Psychology, Index "Illusions." 

Myers, Textbook of Experimental Psychology, Index "Illusions". 

Murray, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 295-00. 

Titchener. Primer of Psychology, pp. 115-117. 

Baldwin, Elements of Psychology, pp. 192-201. 

Angell, Psychology, pp. 132-135. 

Stout, Manual of Psychology, pp. 413-417. 



Reprensatative Knowing. 

31. Distinguished from presentative knowing. Knowledge 
as the cognitive aspect of consciousness presents in respect to "time" 
three phases: (1) of the accepted present, (2) of the recalled past, and (3) 
of the anticipated future. We "know" with equal validity as facts of 
personal life what is "here and now", what "has been", and what "may 
be", that is, the cognitive phase of an experience may be predominantly 
perceptived, reperceptive, or prepercepfcive. In representative knowirg 
the life event is given in consciousness as having been experienced before. 
There is a sense of familiarity or acquaintance with the psychic fact or 
event which refers it to a prior experience. The recognitive idea is no 
less an experience of "the immediate present" than an idea in direct 
apprehension in which the familiarity sense is wholly lacking. Con- 
sciousness is always of what is "present", but in representative knowing 
the experience content is placed in a "past" of the life structure. The 
'been-here-before' feeling is the distinctive mark in all representative 
knowing. 

The chief difficulty in understanding the nature of representative 
knowing is due to a naive conception of the objective character of time. 
Time is not a "thing" in which events are located at intervals with longer 
or shorter stretches of vacancy between them. Time is but a general 
view of events, a constructed system of relations in a changing life current. 
Past, present, and future are but attitudes of personality toward its own 
events. What we accept is "present"; what we turn from is "past"; 
what we look toward is "future". 

References 

Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 80-81, 145-151. 

Baldwin, Elements of Psychology, pp. 128-133. 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 643-652. 

James, Briefer Course in Psychology, pp. 280-286. 

Shoup, Mechanism and Personality, pp. 116-119. 

Bowen, Hamilton's Metaphysics, pp. 409-411. 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 176-180, 188-191 

Snider, Psychology and the Psychosis, pp. 222-228. 

Angell, Psychology, pp. 161-162, 184-185. 

Davis, Elements of Psychology, p. 187. 



52 A Syllabus of Psychology 

32. What a memory is. A memory is a cognitive experience in 
which there is a dominant consciousness of a recreated content. A mem- 
ory is an event in the life, as real and vital as any event due to a primary 
reaction to a situation in which the recognitive element is not consciously 
present. What is known in a memory experience is actually present in 
consciousness as a new vital movement, not the lifeless bodj^ of a vanished 
movement. As a mental fact it belongs wholly to the "present" of the 
life, though it images with more or less fidelity a past experience. View- 
ed as a bit of personal life, a memory is a resuscitation of a phase or form 
of the life structure that has temporarily ceased to be. It is "the psychi- 
cal aspect of the preservation of form in living substance. " To remember 
is to live again, though the resurrected life is never identical with the 
former life ; it is always a life of the here-and-now with its own increment 
of added material. 

In common speech the term "memory" has three rather loosely 
distinguished meanings; it means the general capacity for keeping some- 
where and somehow out of consciousness the results of experiences; it 
means the recurring in consciousness of ideas that have before been facts 
of personal life ; or it means the static results of former experiences some- 
how kept and somehow brought back as unaltered objects of cognition. 
The first and third of these uses have no justification in the science of 
Psychology. A mind is not a granary in which harvested ideas may be 
stored; it is a spontaneously active existence, without objective content 
of "things" of any kind. It is possible to state the second meaning so 
as to give it scientific validity. A memory is a conscious life process 
recurring as a vital fact of the structure of the personal self. 

Memory is the connective tissue of character, the essential bond of 
the inner structure of a personal life. It is the memory image that pre- 
sents in the imagination what has happened to me, and thus makes possi- 
ble the progressive building of a life. Ladd says, "Without memory, 
knowledge of the past would be a meaningless phrase; without know- 
ledge of the past, through memory, present knowledge both of things and 
self would be impossible; and growth of knowledge for the individual 
or the race could not take place. " The art of memory is but the art 
of constructive thinking, in which all selfhood consists. 

References 

Krauth-Fleming, Handbook of the Philosophical Sciences, ''Memory". 

Baldwin, Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, "Memory". 

Murray, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 353-354. 

Judd, Psychology, pp. 236-237. 

Scripture, Thinking, Feeling, Doing, p. 239. 

Calkins, Fust Book in Psychology, pp. 115-123. 

Kay, Memory, etc., pp. 1-46. 

Wentzlaff, The Mental Man, pp. 184-185. 

Dorpfeld, Thought and Memory, pp. 24-27, 36-38. 



A Syllabus of Psychology 53 

33. Four elements of a memory. In a memory experience four 
components may be distinguished: (1) preservation of constituents of 
former experiencing, (2) revival of a past experience structure, (3) recog- 
nition of the revived experience as such, and (4) referring the revived 
experience to a past time. It is essential to a memory that there should 
be ' ' retaining " , " recalling " , " recognizing ' ' , and ' ' localizing in time ' ' 
These coexist in a memory process as simultaneous aspects. 

34. Retaining the past experiences. By "retention of a past 
experience'-' we do not mean a process, but merely a possibility of a 
process — in fact, "retention" is not a factor of the memory experience, 
but merel}?- a condition of it. James says, "Retention means liability 
to recall, and it means nothing more than such liability. The only proof 
of there being retention is that recall actually takes place. The retention 
of an experience is, in short, but another name for the possibility of 
thinking it again, or the tendency to think it again, with its past sur- 
roundings. " As a fact of mental life, retention is the permanent possi- 
bility of reviving a state that is vanishing or that has vanished from con- 
sciousness. It is analogous to the "latent force" of the physicist; and it 
is, at most, but an abiding condition of all memory events. 

The term memory is frequently erroneously used to designate this 
possibility of keeping, or the actual keeping, of a past event. Even 
among psychologists the meaning of the term alternates between the 
preserving and the reproducing of the mental states. A memory is, 
however, an experience, and the possibility of such a bit of life is no more 
a part of the experience than the materials used by the carpenter are a 
part of the process of building the house. The memory is the actual 
coming-to-be in consciousness of what is greeted as having been before 
in a more or less definite past. 

The various theories of retention take three principal forms: first, 
it is thought that each experience "stamps its image" on the brain 
tissue, that every mental event so alters the body structure as to es- 
tablish a material basis for its recurrence ; second, "the mind is thought of 
as a sort of storehouse, or case of pigeon-holes, in which images of past 
experiences are stored away, like the negatives in a photographer's back- 
room, to be pulled out as occasion requires"; third, the life activity per- 
sists in "the ceaseless flow of the subconscious current," to rise into 
consciousness as germinant centers of definite experiences. The truth 
would doubtless be expressed by a proper statement of the first and 
third theories combined; the second may be rejected as wholly irrational. 
A life is a growing structure of experiences that involve mind and body 
in an inseparable unity: and the present, conscious and unconscious, 
contains the whole of the accumulated structure. The absurdity of the 
second theory is apparent when we consider that there is nothing to keep 
as a static thing and no place to keep any such dead form of existence. 

References 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 654-676. 
Dewey, Psychology, pp. 178-180. 



54 A Syllabus of Psychology 

Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 152-164. 

Wundt, Outlines of Psychology, p. 170. 

SuUy, Human Mind, Vol. I, pp. 186-187. 

Ladd, Outhnes of Descriptive Psychology, pp. 419-424. 

AngeU, Psychology, pp. 188-194. 

Stout, Analytical Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 254-263. 

Stout, Manual of Psychology, pp. 76, 435. 

Wenzlaff, The Mental Man, pp. 184-187. 

Davis, Elements of Psychology, pp. 189-190. 

Brooks, Mental Science, pp. 129-131. 

35. Reviving a past experience. The fundamental characteristic 
of a memory is the reviving of a life event, the reproducing in conscious- 
ness of prior states of ideas and feelings. The past experience is resur- 
rected from its grave in the brain cells, or raised from a submerged state 
below the threshold of consciousness, or reenacted in similar form in the 
habitual flow of mental elements. The revived or resucitated event is 
not a mere echo of the original bit of life; it is a new experience, recognized 
in the structural form of the vanished experience. The memory is ac- 
cepted in the consciousness as a re-presentation, though it has never 
been in the life current before in exactly its present form. It incorporates 
elements of knowing and feeling from the past life, so organizing them 
that the structure has the familiar, been-here-before appearance. It 
is not its brought-back component elements that makes it a memory, but 
the familiar form. All conscious processes of life are cumulative, and 
each new process involves those preceding it; but it is only when the 
process presents the having-been-before aspect that it is called a memory. 

The reappearance of an idea in consciousness reveals a continuity of 
mental structure which psychologists have sought to explain by the 
'^laws of the association of ideas". The presence of one idea in con- 
sciousness is thought to give rise to another through some form of ''asso- 
ciation" ^vith it, thus the idea that my room is cold brings into con- 
sciousness the idea of putting coal in the furnace, through the previous 
association of these ideas. Critical discrimination of the relations by 
which ideas suggest other ideas have led to the forinulation of ''laws of 
association", of which the following are most common: — 

(1) Law of Similarit}^: "Similar concepts reproduce one another." 

(2) Law of Contiguity: "Concepts that have been together tend to 

reappear together. " 

(3) Law of Cause and Effect: "Concepts related as cause and effect 

tend to recall each other." 

Probably no subject of psychology has been discussed with more 
earnestness and with less scientific clearness than this question of the 
relation of mental states in the stream of conscious events. The number 
and the formulation of these so-called laws have varied through more than 
two thousand years. Aristotle gave formal statement to the laws of 
"resemblance", "contrast", and contiguity"; and a long list of great 



A Syllabus of Psychology 55 

thinkers have expended time and effort on the subject. Later writers 
have sought to reduce all laws to the single law of contiguity, thus Ladd 
says, ^'All merely mechanical reproduction falls under the principle of 
contiguit}^". St. Augustine's law of " redintigration " is probably the 
most notable effort in this direction: ''Objects that have been previously 
united as parts of a single mental state, tend to recall or suggest one 
another ". Baldwin makes a very clear statement of this truth in his ''law 
of correlation": "Every association of mental states is an integration 
due to the previous correlation of these states in apperception. " 

A fundamental error is revealed in much of the discussion of the 
'laws of the association of ideas". There is evident an attempt to dis- 
cover a linkage between two ideas as objective static existences, that is 
ideas are believed to cohere in some mechanical manner as burs stick 
together. The whole question, however, relates to the flow of thought as 
the mental life progressively reconstructs itself about changing image 
centers. The relation between two mental events is not an external one, 
but an internal dynamic one. A memory is a bit of present life, full of 
meaning in itself; and its recognitive aspect does not demand any asso- 
ciation of discrete idea forms. 

Memory processes are distinguished as "voluntary" and "invol- 
untary", according to the presence or absence of a sense of effort in the 
reviving of the states of consciousness. In voluntary memory, called 
"recollection" in contradistinction to mere "remembrance" as invol- 
untary memory, there is intensified consciousness of a lack of something 
in the present experience, which is sought with more or less persistence in 
the "structure of the past." The effort to recall has its origin in an in- 
tentional completing of an experience state. It is impossible to seek 
what is wholly absent from consciousness. St. Augustine says, "We 
still hold of it, as it were, a part, and by this part which we hold we seek 
that which we do not hold." In involuntary memor}^ one idea succeeds 
another without conscious effort; the incoming idea is often accepted mth 
surprise, though, we, in general, feel that it must be in some way due to 
a "suggestion" in the preceding idea. Reverie, as a loose, effortless 
chain of memory images, is an extreme case of involuntary memory. 

"Forgetting'' is temporary inability to recall a past experience. It 
is not a process, but is merely the negative of the remembering projess. 
It is failure to reproduce a previous experience when voluntarily sought. 
For an experience not to reappear in consciousness spontaneously is not 
to forget it; forgetting is antithetic to voluntary memory only. Also 
to forget does not mean to lose beyond the power to recall; it does not 
mean that what has been a part of a life may be annihilated, but only 
that it is so displaced from consciousness as not to be found when 
wanted. While an event may never recur in the life (untold thousands 
never do), there is always the possibility that it may. 

References 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 550-604, 679-681. 

James, Briefer Course in Psychology, pp. 289-292. 

Stout, Manual of Psychology, pp. 418-434. 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 90-117. 

Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 191-203. 



56 A Syllabus of Psychology 

Baldwin, Elementg of Psychology, pp. 161-174. 

Ladd, Psvcholoffv Descriptive and Explanatory, pp. 263-286. 

Sully, Human Mind, Vol. I, pp. 294-360, Vol. II, Appendix, pp. 339-342. 

Kay, Memory, etc., pp. 271-288, 235-239. 

Dorpfeld, Thought and Memory, pp. 39-53. 

Bowen, Hamilton's Metaphysics, pp. 421-442. 

Spencer, Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 267-271. 

Bain, Mental Science, pp. 85-127, Appendix, pp. 91-92. 

36. Recognizing a revived experience. Recognition is the third 
of the four components which our analysis of a memory experience has 
revealed. An experience is (1) retained, (2) reproduced, and (3) recog- 
nized; that is '^ known as having been known before". In a memory I 
am not only conscious of an experience as something that has been pre- 
served and recalled, but also it now appears as my experience returned. 
It is in identifying a present experience with an experience of my past life 
that it becomes a memory; hence, in a memory there is a consciousness 
of a self to which the memory belongs. The recognition element of a 
memory demands an awareness of a unified personality of which the 
memory experience is but a form of present realization. The retrospect- 
ive glance of memory is incident to comprehension of selfhood; it is of the 
same nature as prospecting the future, and both serve to give fuller mean- 
ing to the present. ''Every act of memory with recognition transcends 
the present, and connects the present into a known real unity with the 
past. " 

Since the memory idea is not an object floated upon the stream of 
conscious life as something distinct from the substance of the stream 
itself, but is an aspect of the moving current, an eddy in its progressive 
reaUzation, all figurative explanations of recognition, ''acquaintance", 
"familiarity", etc., must be received critically. The psychologist finds 
clear thinking in his field hampered at every turn by lack of technical 
terminology, untainted by prejudiced use in the material sciences. Psy- 
chology has little scientific language of its own, but masquerades in the 
verbal forms of extrospective objective science. A memory image is a 
process, not a product, and recognition is not of something that has been 
but no longer is, it is but a phase of present life processes. All life is 
present life, whether accepted as a "now" projected into "the past", 
or prospected in "the future". 

References 

Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 172-179, 

Baldwin, Elements of Psychology, pp. 149-152. 

Wenzlaff, The Mental Man, pp. 195-197. 

Ladd, Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory, pp. 377-378, 381-382, 397-402. 

Calkins, Firtst Book in Psychology, pp. 124-132. 

Brooks, Mental Science, pp. 136-139. 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 673, 676. 

James, Briefer Course in Psychology, p. 299. 

Dewey, Psychology, p. 190. 

Angell, Psychology, pp. 187-192. 

37. Localizing a memory in time. The most peculiar aspect 
of a memory experience is its pastness. A memory is a bit of conscious 



A Syllabus of Psychology 57 

life which in some strange way is objectified and thrust out into a "past 
time". It is a revival of cognitive activity, accepted as familiar, and 
projected into a "time" construct. We are not only conscious of the 
state as having been, but there is a more or less sense of when it has been. 
In our attitude toward it as a bit of life's substance we turn our back on 
it, denying to it either the acceptance of the "present" or the anticipa- 
tion of the "future"; it simply has been "back there somewhere". 

Much of the difficulty in understanaing this localizing of a memory 
event in a past time is due to lack of clearness as to the nature of time. 
Time is not an object,ive "thing", as a roadway along which events pro- 
ceed in a more or less uniformly-spaced order, as a procession in which 
there are gaps of vacancy, or "empty time". Such a view is philosophi- 
cally absurd. Herbert Spencer has well said, "Time is the abstract 
(general view) of all relations of sequence"; and consciousness of "empty 
time' ' is impossible. Time is but a way of looking at life events, in their 
sequence of content and form. *'Each individual constructs his own 
time-order from the standpoint of the ' specious' or felt present by means 
of images in which the past and future, not actually present, are repre- 
sented". My "past" and "future" are my constructs of experience 
changes; and when I think an event as past, I merely place it in a cate- 
gory of those events from which I have turned. Fastness, presentness 
or futureness are not qualities of the events as such, but consist solely 
in the will attitudes of the person toward his experiences; what we turn 
from as gone is "past", what we act toward as here is "present", and 
what we anticipate as coming is "future." 

The dating of an event in the past, i. e., giving it a fixed place in 
the time construct, depends upon its relations to other events in conscious- 
ness. There are two forms of projecting an event into past time, in the 
one we merely say "it has been"; in the other, "it was at a relatively 
determined point". All memory events have the 'has-been' character- 
istic; but in some there is a more or less definite determining of 'when 
it has been', while in many the reference to the past is satisfied by mere 
acknowledgement of the pastness. There are also apparently two forms 
of determining the date of a past event: first, placing it among a somewhat 
vaguely located group of events as 'belonging to their time'; and second, 
estimating in objective artificial time units 'how long since' it has been. 
But even in this how-long-since the place of the event is fixed in the time 
schedule by its relations to other contiguous events. It is impossible 
to measure back to an event from the present along a vacant stretch of 
time, that is, in locating a point in past time there is always more involved 
than a present point and a time measuring-rod. Whereness in time — 
past, present, or future — is a matter of the whole form of the experience 
content To know that an event is a past event or to determine when 
it was in the past demands a comprehensive view of the content and 
form of the experiential life as a whole, and it cannot be narrowed to a 
mere mechanical matter of objective time units and records. 



58 A Syllabus of Psychology 

The part that rythm plays in determining the place of an experience 
in the progressive life movement is an interesting study, but I doubt 
that it fully explains the determining of the '' length of time" between 
two time stations, as some writers seem to think it does. Try, with a 
stop watch, the experiment of closing your eyes for one minute, noting 
in critical introspection your attitude toward the process. How do you 
determine how long to keep your eyes shut? 

References 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 605-642. 

James, Briefer Course in Psychology, pp. 280-286. 

Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, Vol I, pp. 179-188. 

Baldwin, Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, article "Time". 

Encyclopaedia Britannica, Ward's article on "Psychology". 

Stout, Manual of Psychology, pp. 384-391, 496-500. 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 183-191. 

Spencer, Principles of Psychology, Vol. II, pp. 207-215. 

SuUy, Human Mind, Vol. T, pp. 318-329; Vol. II, pp. 343-345. 

Ladd, OutUnes of Descriptive Psychology, pp. 299-302. 

Ladd, Psycholog3^ Descriptive and Explanatory, pp. 495-499. 

Spiller, Mind of Man, p. 384. 

Munsterberg, Psychology and Life, p. 14. 

Hoffding, OutHnes of Psychology, pp. 184-190. 



Elaborative Knowing. 

38. Nature of elaboration. The third form of cognition is the 
elaboration of the knowledge structure out of germinant sense-percep- 
tions and accumulated knowledge content. In its growth the mind 
acquires knowledge materials in presentation, maintains its continuity 
and integrity in representation, and gives form to its structure in elabora- 
tion. Elaboration is the organizing of the cognitive life in constructive 
growth. In the analytic structure of the process numerous forms are 
distinguished, of which the following are most important : Apperception, 
Conception, Imagination, Judgment, and Reasoning. 

40. Apperception is mental assimilation. It is a natural biological 
process of transforming mental food into mental tissue; it builds the 
raw materials of sensation into unified knowledge structure. The mind 
as a growing organism constantly reconstructs itself in the acquisition 
of new substance. This apperceptive process of relating new percepts 
to previously formed knowledge structure is cooperative between the old 
and the new; the new is not only assimilated (''made like" the old), 
but the old is reconstructed ("formed again") to take in the new. Ap- 
perception is the process of integrating ("wholing") the new increment 
into the coherent whole of a personal life. In this process the present 
sense-percept becomes the germinant center of a more or less completely 
unified experience; and the life as a whole is formed progressively by this 
assimilative reconstruction of its substance in successive experiences. 



A Syllabus of Psychology 59 

Apperception is the synthesizing activity which gives significance 
and value to mental data. Apperception interprets the present in the 
light of the past; and it is only in this interpreting that sensory elements 
acquired in perception have any "meaning". "Meaning is past exper- 
ience which a mind reads into present experience. " It is an apperception 
that the mind values and utilizes present possessions by relating them 
to its whole experience structure previously acquired and organized. 

Apperception is not supplemental to perception in the sense that it 
is added to- it as a discrete extension or continuation; it is unavoidably a 
part of all perception. As the mind grasps the phenomenal world in 
perception, it simultaneously values it in terms of what it already has, or 
is. Perception is never without this assimilative interpretation, which 
is inceptive of the organizing process of forming coherent knowledge UDits, 
Some psychologists use the term "perception" to designate the whole of 
the active assimilation of new sense-impressions by the structure origina- 
ting in previous experience; but in the interest of explanatory science 
there is some advantage in distinguishing the organizing phase of the 
process from the acquisitive phase, even though they are not separable. 

In the Herbartian Psychology the existing mental systems by which 
the new perceptions are welcomed and assimilated are called "apper- 
ception masses", or "apperception bases". The "apperception mass" 
is life already attained focalized in a concept or notion, and used as a 
means of acquiring additional life. To the Herbartian psychologists 
apperception is "the reaction of the old against the new," as when a 
person familiar with oranges but who has never seen a grape fruit, ex- 
claims on seeing a grape fruit for the first time, "What a big orange!" 
They regard the "apperception masses" as active entities seizing what- 
ever they desire for their own enlargement. One of them says, "The 
apperceiving conceptions usually stand like armed soldiers within the 
strongholds of consciousness, ready to pounce upon everything which 
shows itself within the portals of the senses, in order to overcome it and 
make it serviceable to themselves." 

Clearness in description and explanation of mental growth requires 
that apperception should be distinguished from conception. Since per- 
ception is the acquisitive phase and apperception is the organizing phase 
of the growing process, it might appear that there would be no use for 
the term "conception"; but conception is as clearly distinguishable 
from apperception as apperception is from perception. Conception 
(as will be seen in the next section) is the forming of mental units. It 
creates notions as the discrete facts of rational life. It is teleological, 
while apperception is mere procedure as such. Conception is concerned 
primarily with what is achieved in life structure, while apperception re- 
lates to how it is achieved. 

References 

Stout, Analytical Psychology, A^ol. II, p. 110 et seq. 
Dewey, Psychology, pp. 84-90. 
Lindner, Empii*ical Psychology, pp. 123-130. 
Lange, Appreception, DeGarmo's translation. 
Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, Vol. I, Index. 



60 A Syllabus of Psychology 

Baldwin, Dictionary of Psychology and Philosophy. 
Munsterberg, Psychology and Life, pp. 88-92. 
Munsterberg, Psychologj^ and the Teacher, pp. 128-136. 
Pillsbury, Attention, p. 214 et seq. 
Snider, Psychology and the Psychosis, p. 161 et seq. 
Gordy, New Psychology, pp. 846-353. 

41. Conception is forming notions, or '^ideas''. It is elaborating 
universals out of particulars acquired in perception, thus simplifying life 
by unifying in comprehensive notions the elements grasped in sense- 
perception. It is not, however, a mere '' grasping together", as the 
etymology (con-capio) would imply, but a true creative process of making 
meaningful units in the knowledge structure. These mental units, 
called "concepts", are not percepts, either "simple" or ' 'complex"— not 
single apprehensions of concrete objects nor combinations of such per- 
ceptive apprehensions; they are veritable creations in which the individ- 
ual elements have lost their identity. Thus, in the concept dog, when 
we say "a dog is on the doorstep", the quality of four-footedness is not 
in consciousness. 

Conception creates the universal. A concept is always a " universal " 
whether it is the notion of an individual thing or of a class of things. 
There are in fact, two classes of concepts, both alike universal: class 
concepts, originating in a synthesis of the common features of the indi- 
vidual things of a species or class; individual concepts, originating in a 
like synthesis of the important features of an individual thing. A concept 
is always an ideal construction: and an individual concept is 
no less a collective universal than a "general concept "of a class. Thus, 
the notion of the individual Roosevelt is an abstract universal in exactly 
the same sense as the notion of the class man, — that is, the "individual 
concept" which we denominate by a proper noun is no more a group of 
separate characteristics loosely combined than the "general concept" 
which we embody in a common noun is a congeries of perceptions of 
human qualities; and the one can no more be imaged than the other. 
A concept is abstract and universal and cannot in any case be imaged. 
Conception is cognition of the universal, as distinguished from perception 
of the particular. While we refer perceptions to definite objects which we 
image, we do not so refer concepts. 

Conception gives meaning to the life elements. The acquisitions of 
perception would be as valueless as the miser's gold, if conception did 
not build them into significant structures. All of our valuable know- 
ledge, that is, all laiowledge that has meaning for us, exists in concepts; 
in fact, our intellectual lives are but sj^stems of rationally related concepts . 

Conception is initiated in the formation of the "generic image" by 
uniting in an associative way a number of concrete images of particular 
objects. Into this generic image, as a framework, are progressively built 
selected materials. Conception creates the ideational units of life by 
ceaseless constructive organization of materials selectively appropriated 



A Syllabus of Psychology 61 

by differentiated knowledge sj^stems. The ''general concept" is thus 
not a static entity at any stage of its existence, but is a continuous groAvth, 
originating in the generic image as a germinant center and continuing 
by perceptive acquisition and intellective organization. Four part 
processes are commonl}^ distinguished in conception: (1) comparison, 
(2) abstraction, (3) generalization, and (4) denomination — that is, we 
note likeness and unlikeness in the phenomena perceived, abstract like 
qualities for consideration, generalize these qualities into a class, and give 
the class definite existence in a name. A concept is never ''completed", 
even when named; it is not a static result; it is perpetually a djTiamic 
process of the gro^^dng mind. It is the concept units, or "mental systems " 
pre^aousl}^ elaborated out of perception materials, that serve as "apper- 
ception masses" in distributing new acquisitions in the whole mental 
structure. Concepts thus not only conserve the experiences of the past 
and unify the present, but they also anticipate a future of new exper- 
iences. 

Conception is the initial process of all thinking, considered as the 
organizing aspect of mental gro'^i:h complemental to the acquisitive 
aspect of sense-perception. In thinking the mental substance accumu- 
lated in sensing the material en\TLronment is built into structural unity; 
and the higher forms of judging and reasoning not only begin in concept- 
ion but are themselves but more elaborate forms of the same process. 

It is important to distinguish the use of the term "concept" in Logic 
from its use in Psychology. In Logic it means more the static result of 
mental activity than the activity itself; it is viewed from the side of its 
verbal embodiment and is dealt with as a "term" -with a fixed meaning. 
In Psychology- it is a process, a constantly changing mental procedure 
which "denomination" does not check. In Logic the symbolic aspect 
of the concept often obliterates the meaning, while in Psychology the 
meaning as a growdng process finds but loose embodiment in the sym- 
bolizing term. 

"Can we think ^\ithout language?" The logician must answer 
this question in the negative; for so far as the formal thinking of Logic 
is concerned, at least of deductive Logic, the term embodiments of the 
concepts are indispensible. The symbolic phase of the concept as "fixed " 
in the verbal sign overshadows its meaning, obscuring it and in the formal 
syllogism even obliterating it. In the more rigorous forms of deductive 
reasoning the "terms" are in general as abstract as the letter s^^mbols 
in the algebraic equation, and the validity of the reasoning depends 
essentially upon the right use of these verbal forms, with but slight ref- 
erence to their content. Even in less systematic thinking the "word" 
often becomes a meaningless form to juggle with in apparent thought — 
witness the common use of the word "instinct". But our question is 
not as easy as this. Observation of human life about us reveals thought 
processes of apparently much cogency in which the conventional forms 
of articulate speech are wholly wantmg. A young child (especially one 
who is "slow in beginning to talk") will discuss for some minutes a sit- 
ation with his mother without using even one conventional word symbol. 



62 A Syllabus of Psychology 

In this connection the question of the '' language of animals is interesting ". . 
For suggestive brief discussions of this whole matter, see Sully's Human 
Mind, Vol. I, p. 419, and Titchener's Textbook of Psychology, p. 521. 

While the distinction of the ''intension" and ''extenison" of terms 
is more properly a matter for the student of Logic, these two aspects of 
the word-embodied concept are not without interest to the psychologist. 
The "intent of a term" is its qualitative meaning, while its ''extent" is 
its quantitative use: the intent of the term man is the qualities which it 
connotes, while its extent is the aggregation of things which it names. 
Psychology is properly concerned with the intent, leaving the extent 
to Philosophy and Logic. 

References 

Porter, Human Intellect, pp. 388-430. 

Sully, Human Mind, Vol. I, pp. 413, 433. 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 204-213. 

Angell, Psychology, pp. 203-222. 

Ladd, Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory, pp. 437-445. 

Baldwin, Elements of Psychology, pp. 206-211. 

Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 272-283. 

Wentzlaff, The Mental Man, op. 211-215. 

Davis, Elements of Psychology, pp. 219-224, 227-230. 

Lotze, Outhnes of Logic, I., 9-25. 

Brown, System of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 543-548, Vol. II, pp. 65-83. 

Lewes, Problems of Life and Mind, 3rd Series, Vol. II, pp. 463-467. 

Stout, Manual of Psychology, p. 447 et seq. 

Stout, Groundwork of Psychology, pp. 142, 145. 

Stout, Analytical Psychology, Vol. II, p. 168, et seq. 

Robertson, Elements of Psychology, pp. 165-176. 

Gordy, New Psychology, pp. 273,304. 

Lindner, Empirical Psychology, pp. 140-145. 

Calkins, First Book in Psychology, pp. 136-143. 

Brooks, Mental Science, pp. 210-227. 

Betts, Mind and its Education, pp. 147-154. 

Snider, Psychology and the Psychosis, Intellect, p. 478 et seq. 

Mm-ray, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 253-255. 

Pillsbury, Essentials of Psychology, pp. 220-228. 

Read, Introductory Psychology, pp. 232-240. 

42. Imagination is forming ideal images by combining in new 
forms selected images of past experiences. It gives sensuous form, '^ with- 
out the present help of the senses", to objects never apprehended in 
sense-perception; and thus it creates a new world of concrete facts. The 
"pictures of imagination" are new wholes, not mere aggregations of re- 
perceptive fragments; its objects have the integral unity of the ''reals" 
of sense-perception. It presents in consciousness images of possible 
concrete existences, as distinguished from the actual ''things" of the 
world of sense. Imagination never deals with the abstract, as one cannot 
imagine "mercy" or "truthfulness"; it aever deals with the general, 
as one cannot imagine the meaning of a class noun; it never deals with 
the spiritual, or "immaterial", as one cannot imagine God, except in 
terms of the crudest material anthropomorphic features. Stated afiirma* 
tively, imagination deals with concrete, individual, material possibilities. 
It converts actual experience data into ideal presentations. Wundt has 



A Syllabus of Psychology 63 

defined it as 'thinking in particular sense ideas", as distinguished from 
thinking in geaeral concepts; and Shakespeare says, '' Imagination bodies 
forth the forms of things unknown. " 

Imagination differs from memor}^ in two respects: first, its images 
are ideal constructions, not mere representations as in memor}^; second, 
while in memory there is always a sense of familiarity — a been-here-be 
foreness — , in imagination there is a distinct sense of newTiess or strange- 
ness. The images of imagination are like those of memory in that their 
materials are representations of cognitive elements acquired in sense- 
perception; but they differ from the memory images" in that they are not 
pictures of existing things, but are ideal constructions. In general it 
may be said that memory revives perceptive elements in the combinations 
in which they were experienced, while imagination arranges them in new 
forms. It should be noted, however, that no image is ever an exact 
reproduction of a perceptive structure as it originates in the actual sensing 
of a concrete particular object; every memory image, however sure we 
are of its faithfulness to the original, is at best a modified picture. It is 
only in the most general characterization that we may say that, "old 
forms are imaged in memory; new forms, in imagination". Since in its 
use of its reproduced materials imagination ignores the limitations of 
the real data of sense-perception, it has been called "idealized memory". 
Memory brings into consciousness what has been, wdth a sense of acquaint- 
anceship; imagination, what may be, without recognition of former 
existence in its perceptive data. Memory has been called "a witness to 
the past", and imagination) "a prophet of the future"; but, strictly, 
there is no sense of time in imagination. In perception the mind grasps 
an external world of physical phenomena; in memory it represents its 
acquisitions in consciousness; and in imagination it sets before itself a 
new^ world of possibihties, which it concieves as actualities. 

Imagination differs from conception in objectifying its creations as 
images; concepts are not so objectively imaged. "Picturing", the prom- 
inent characteristic of imagination, is w^holly absent in conception. Both 
conception and imagination are constructive elaborative processes in 
which cognitive elements are built into mental units of a higher order; 
but in conception the product is an abstract general notion, a "univer- 
sal" that cannot be pictured as an objective real, while in imagination it 
is a concrete particular image, viewed as a sensory real in an objective 
world of such reals. An imagined tree is individual; the concept tree is 
universal. "Imagination is thinking in particular sense images", as 
distinguished from thinking in universal concepts. 

43. Three phases, or forms, of imagination may be distinguished: 
intensifying, idealizing, and creating. Imagination intensifies a mental 
process originating in sensing the physical environment, as when a mother 
in coddling sympathy increases the pain, both in its cognitive and its 
affective phases, in her child's hand as it bleeds from the scratch of a pin. 
The pain is greater not only because of the focussing of attention upon it, 
but also because it is made greater by imagination. This enlarging of 
experience by imagination is common to both perceptive apprehension 



64 A Syllabus of Psychology 

and representative memory images; in any event of life the mind may - 
add by im-agination to its importance in the vital structure. Tn the 
second form of imagination, idealizing, the mind builds upon and 
improves its structural units, modifying them in accordance with its own 
desires and purposes. Starting with an image of some concrete reality, 
selecting valued characteristics of it to serve as a framework, ignoring 
other undesirable features and replacing them by desirable ones found in 
other similar images, and rounding out the improved structure into a finish- 
ed whole, the mind constructs an integral ideal image for its own world as 
it would have it be. It is in this way that we create our heroes, and 
exalt our friends. The idealized product is always much more than a 
mere intensified image; it is also more than a mere aggregation of se- 
lected qualities; it is a birth of the generating mind. In the third form 
of imagination, creating, the mind rises to the highest activity of its 
willed selfhood. Here it forms in and of its own substance images to 
which there are no objective reals of experience. By virtue of its free 
personal spontaneity, as a being created in the image of God, it creates 
a world of its own. While these creatures of the imagination find their 
materials in the perceptions of the senses as reproduced in memory images, 
their individualized forms are ideal structures, new existences in the 
spiritual world that are as real creations as when God thought the stars 
into being. The scenes in "Alice in Wonderland " or the streets and walls 
of St. John's "New Jerusalem" are none the less creations because their 
sensuous materials originated in ordinary experience. 

The distinction of the three phases of imagination as intensifying, 
idealizing, and creating does not imply three separate modes of mental 
action; thej^ are but aspects of a single elaborative process, which may be 
viewed as intensifying, idealizing, or creating. The "Heaven" of John's 
Revelation may be viewed as his thought creation, or as his idealiza- 
tion of a walled city in which the images of beauty are rationally intensi- 
fied. 

The distinction of imagination experiences as "passive imagination'' 
and "active imagination", made by many psychologists, is misleading — 
as, in fact, is the term "passive" everywhere when applied to mental 
processes. It involves the absurdity of a passive activity ! It is, however 
profitable to make a distinction between the erratic play of "phantasy" 
and the intelligent work of "imagination proper", provided such classi- 
fying of mental events does not implj^, as some writers seem to think, 
"a total absence of will in phantasy". Phantasy, or "fancy", is the 
"spontaneous uncontrolled play of images in consciousness," a passive (?) 
experiencing in which the mind drifts meaninglessly like a mental ka- 
leidoscope. The term "active imagination" is used to denote the more 
rationally purposed building of ideal images. The difference noted here 
is not so much one of varying degrees of activity as of planned or planless 
ordering of life events. There is every shade of deUberative directing 



A Syllabus of Psychology 65 

of the life current in imagination from the most playful prospecting of 
the world of fancy's possibilities to the constructive anticipations of the 
architect; but to no phase of this self achieving can the term "'passive" 
be properly applied. 

SuUv, Human Mind, Vol. I, pp. 362-387. 

Hamilton, D. H., Autology, pp. 567-588. 

Bascom, Science of Mind, pp. 148-159. 

Bowne, Introduction to Psychological Theory, pp. 277-278. 

McCosh, Psvchologv, Cognitive Powers, pp. 167-174. 

Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 213-243. 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 192-201. 

Porter, Human Intellect, pp. 351-376. 

Angell, Psychology, pp. 161-183. 

Snider, Psychology and the Psychosis, Intellect, p. 281 et seq. 

Davis, Elements of Psychology, pp. 198-215. 

44. In the natural evolution of the knowledge structure of a mind 
by elaborating its sensory elements, the notional units formed in con- 
ception are combined in larger structures of judgment and reasoning. 
Judgment asserts the agreement, or disagreement, of one idea with anoth- 
er; and by such formal recognition of relationship, it gives meaning to 
one through the meaning of the other. In its verbal embodiment a 
judgment declares the identity of one concept with another, explicitly 
defining it by asserting that it is (in the aspect considered) the other. 
This predication is the essential characteristic of judgment as synthesizing 
cognitive process; thus, in the judgment "the grass is wet", the concept 
''grass" is formally identified (so far as the present intellectual process 
is concerned) with the concept of "wetness". A judgment creates a 
larger mental system by incorporating one concept in another; thus, 
the concept "wet" gives fuller and more definite meaning to the concept 
"grass". Judgment defines the meaning of a concept by explicit atten- 
tion to one feature of it. 

The loose thinking of much Psychology and Logic is evidenced by tha 
statement, common in textbooks in both sciences, that "Judgment dis- 
cerns the agreement of two concepts", or "Judgment asserts the rela- 
tion between two objects of thought". A little critical thinking will 
show that a judgment deals specifically with one concept, or "object 
of thought," which it seeks to define or enlarge through its relation to 
another which enters the judgment merely as building material for the 
first concept. These quotations would be less vague and more worthy 
of a place in scientific textbooks, if they were "Judgment discerns the 
agreement of one concept with another," and "Judgment asserts the 
relation of one object of thought to another". Even the merest tyro in 
grammar knows the significance of the "subject" in the sentence, and 
that nothing is said about "fruits" in the declaration that "Apples are 
fruits", or that in "a=b" the relation of b to a is not directly considered. 
A "proposition" in Logic is not a swivel-link union of two terms, that may 
be handled from either end; it is a specific defining of the meaning of a 
term through its relation to another. 



66 A Syllabus of Psychology 

45. Judgement, like conception, is an integrating, or ^Svboling", 
process, in which the mind seeks by the discovery of a definite relationship 
to unify discrete mental factors into a coherent whole. As a process of 
interpreting new, or less known, concepts m terms of old, or better known 
ones, it effects a re-forming of the units of mental structure; it effects 
a larger synthesis of life materials by bringing one system of mental 
facts into definite vital relation to another. It is a true growing process 
in which one mental system is assimilated into another. In this apper- . 
ceptive process the predicate concept is an ^'apperceptive mass" which 
formally receives and orients the subject concept as a new center of a 
growing knowledge system. The mind seeks in judgment a larger syn- 
thesis of organized substance by working over its notional contents. 
While judgment is a distinct form of mental elaboration, the process of 
judging is a widely diffused one. Perception, Conception, Judgment are 
but stages in one process — in the constructive growing of a mind. While 
judgment is essential to the forming of the concept in the first instance, it 
is specifically a further elaboration of the concept through discovered 
relations to another concept. 

A judgment is not a mere fusion of concepts; it is a formal predica- 
tion of the union of one concept with another, fixed in a verbal body. 
Sully says, "The connection between judging and asserting in words is 
precisely similar to that between forming a concept and naming". Just 
as naming is essential to the complete process of conception so the process 
of judgment is completed in the proposition. The two expressions 'Hhe 
yellow rose" and "the rose is yellow" embody essentially different mental 
processes, however much they may appear synonymous in cominon life. 
The first accepts a relation which the second explicitly determines. The 
transition from "the rose is yellow" to the yellow rose" show the syn 
thetic nature of judgment as a concept-building process. 

Judgment is impossible without concepts, therefore without terms. 
However, the "propositions" of Logic should not be confounded with the 
judgments of Psychology. Logic deals with terms having fixed values; 
it makes assertionns about static knowledge forms. Psychology deals 
with concepts as constantly changing processes; it amplifies the processes 
through their natural growth. Logic is concerned with the formal ex- 
pression of relations of "completed concepts; Psychology, with the 
processes of thinking concepts into vital union through their kinship to 
each other. 

References 

Porter. Human Intellect, pp. 430-489. 

Sully, Human Mind, Vol. I, pp. 434,457. 

Angcll, PsyfholoGry, pp. 223-234. 

Dewev, Psychology, pp. 213-220. 

Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 283-291. 

Baldwin, Elements of P.sychology, pp. 211-21G. 

Ladd, Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory, pp. 445-452. 

Snider, Psychology and the Psychosis, Intellect, pp. 498-507. 

Calkins, First Book in Psycholog\, p]). 144-147. 



A Syllabus of Psychology 67 

Murray, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 255-260. 
Davis, Elements of Psychology, pp. 224-226. 
Gordy, New Psychology, pp. 305-319. 
Brooks, Mental Science, p. 228 et seq. 

46. Reasoning is mediate judgment; it relates one concept to anoth- 
er through their relation to a third concept. For example, if I judge that 
a small feather-covered object which I see on a branch of a tree will fly 
away, my judgment is indirect, or mediate: I judge it a bird; I judge 
birds fly away; I judge it will fi}^ away. My judgment relates the con- 
cept that object to the concept flying away through the concept bird to 
which these concepts are separately related, thus, that object — a bird — 
will fly awa3^ The distinction of reasoning from simpler forms of judg- 
ing is essentially a matter of this mediating of the process; reasoning effects 
the union of one concept with another through the medium of a third 
concept related to each. 

In the widest sense "reasoning" is synonymous with "thinking", 
that is, with the organizing phase of all knowing from the simplest per- 
ception to the most complex deliberative processes of the philosopher's 
system. In the narrower technical sense, however, it is restricted to the 
establishing of relationship between ideas through recognition of other 
relationships. Judging, dealing with but two objects of thought, is 
necessarily direct, or immediate, while reasoning, dealing with three or 
more, arrives at its judgment by auxiliary judgments. The mental 
process expressed by "it is raining", when I see the drops falling, is less 
complex than the same judgment when I see passing people carrying 
raised umbrellas; in the second I "infer" the judgment that people 
carry umbrellas over themselves when it is raining. There is, however, 
mference in the simplest judgment; and just as a concept is a "contracted 
ludgment", so a judgment is a "contracted reasoning". 

Reasoning is strictly a teleological process; it has been called "pur- 
posive thinking". It is thinking directed to the accomplishment of some 
desired end. All knowledge is growth, rather a continuous growing, and 
reasonine is but its highest stage; hence reasoning is entitled to the dis- 
tinctive term "purposive" only in the sense that its purposing is more 
formal. It is a rationally directed apperceptive process in which one con- 
cept is incorporated into another through dfinitel}^ progressive stages 
of assimilation. This is readily seen in the formal statement of the 
syllogism. 

Reasoning may be defined as a succession of judgments leading to a 
final judgment. Since this basing of a judgment on a judgment is the 
essence of reasoning, it is common to say that " reasoning is discerning 
relationships among judgments in the way in which judging is discerning 
relationships among concepts". But this is not a clear statement of the 
facts; for reasoning, at least in Psychology, deals directly with the con- 
cepts. Its "unification of thoughts", or judgments, is in its final purpose 
and result a unification of concepts. 



68 A Syllabus of Psychology 

In Logic the ''terms" and ''propositions" are dealt with as static 
expressions of results(?) of thinking; thus; in the formal reasoning, — 

(1) Apples are good to eat; 

(2) that object is an apple; 

(3) that object is good to eat, — 

the term "that object" is held to have identically the same meaning in 
the second and third propositions; also, the second proposition is held to 
be ''a completed judgment" with unchanging value wherever it occurs 
in an argument. In Psychology there are no ''static concepts" of im- 
mobile character in any knowing process. The concepts and judgments 
are alike processes, which will not "stay put" in any succession of ap- 
perceptive building of the mental content. What Logic ''views from 
without" as objective beings. Psychology "views from within" as sub- 
jective becomings. 

47. There are two forms of reasoning, or rather two stages in the 
process: Inductive Reasoning and Deductive Reasoning. The second of 
these, given lasting form in the Organon of Aristotle, is the accepted 
method of thinking in formal Logic; the first made prominent in the Novum 
Organum of Bacon nineteen centuries after Aristotle, is the common 
method of all modern observational science. The psychologist is in- 
terested in this distinction of the inductive and deductive phases of 
reasoning only as far as he discerns in them distinct stages in the elabora- 
tive growth of knowledge; with the relative values and validities of in- 
duction and deduction as means of arriving at generalized truth, the 
controversy of the logicians, he has directly nothing to do. 

Deduction was not only the first form of thought-movement to be 
critically investigated, it is the fundamental form in all systematic pur- 
posive thinking. All inductive reasoning is in the last analysis deductive. 
It is the essence of all reasoning to relate a particular to a universal, that 
is, to evaluate a present life center in terms of a life system originated in 
previous growth. In deduction a concept is applied to a new perceptive 
fact to define it and to give it concrete value in the life structure. All 
growth in knowledge proceeds from the life that is to the larger and better 
organized life that is apperceptively possible; and " deductive reasoning" , 
in its strictly technical sense, is incorporating a new element into the 
organic structure through the medium of an organicunit of that struct- 
ure. It places the particular fact in the universal system by means of 
its relation to a subordinate system. Deduction is a process of mental 
assimilation through subsuming a particular fact under a more general 
fact; thus, in looking from my window at a white substance covering the 
ground, if I say "that substance is cold", I have brought that substance 
into the general class of cold things by subsuming it under the class 
snow, which I more or less definitely accept as a connecting medium. 



A Syllabus of Psychology 69 

Deductive reasoning is formally expressed in the Syllogism, as in 
the example just given — 

(1) Snow is cold; 

(2) that is snow; 

(3) that is cold. 

The typical syllogism consists of three judgments, of which the third 
is the final cause of the reasoning process as a whole. In judging that 
that substance is cold two subordinate judgments are involved, namely, 
that it is snow and that snow is cold. The proper use of the syllogism 
and its various forms in which effective reasoning may be cast concern 
the logician rather than the psychologist; the psychologist describes and 
explains how we reason (in a "fact science"), and the logician determines 
how we should reason (in a "normative science")- 

The "middle term" of a syllogism is the medium of comparison of 
the "minor term "to the "major term "; thus in the syllogism in the para- 
graph above, the middle term is '"snow", the minor term is "that sub- 
stance", and the major term is "cold (substance) ". The middle term is 
the characteristic fact in the syllogistic form of reasoning; it effects the 
vital connection of the particular mental fact designated bj^ the minor 
term with its defining concept embodied in the major term. Porter says, 
"In every syllogism the force of reasoning depends on what is called the 
middle term. " This is forcibly true as we view the syllogism as a "med- 
iate judgment" concerned with concepts, rather than a chain of judg- 
ments 

The term "inductive reasoning" designates in a very loose way 
the deriving of a "general judgment" from a number of relatively inde- 
pendent "paticular judgments". The effect of this rather complex 
process is to sum up in a single proposition, as a generalized truth relating 
to a class of objects, what is stated in detail in the separate particular 
propositions; thus, from the particular judgments — 

Apples are perishable, 

pears are perishable, 

peaches are perishable, 

plums are perishable, 

grapes are perishable, — 
we arrive by induction at the general judgment that fruits are perishable. 
Induction is, however, more than a mere summation; it always advances 
beyond the "aggregate knowledge of the particular judgments." It is 
based upon the assumed reasoning canon that "what is true of many 
in a class is true of all the class." 

The so-called "inductive syllogism", as exemplified in the reasoning 
about the perishableness of fruits, is not a syllogism; introspective ex- 
amination of this complex process reveals a number of mediate judgments 
that may be formally expressed in syllogisms. The "generalization" 
of induction is a complex conceptive process that is much more than a 
mere adding of parts; it advances to a new mental unit through inte- 
grating an individual fact into an existing universal. To simplify the 
content of mental life by tying judgments up in bundles (if that were 



70 A Syllabus of Psychology 

possible) is not reasoning; the condensing of the judgments of particulars - 
into the general judgment is a creating of a,new judgment, in which the 
concepts appear in new stages of their evolution. The term '^ fruits" 
in the induction above is much more than a common name for apples- 
pears-peaches-plums -grapes. 

It is misleading to say that, ''induction is reasoning which proceeds 
from the particular to the general", in so far as it is intended to designate 
a complete thought movement; all reasoning relates a particular to a 
universal and is teleologically concerned with the particular. It is fre- 
quently said that ''induction must precede deduction", for "we cannot 
deduce particulars from generals until we have first made the generals"; 
it would be just as true (or false?) to say that we cannot know particu- 
lars until we first have generals in which to define them. This is the old 
quibble of the hen and the first egg. The fact is that induction and de- 
duction are not successive stages, or discrete steps, in a life movement; 
they are but two aspects of one movement. Every complete thought 
process is both inductive and deductive. The mental units built up in 
perceptive experience are rationalized in coherent systems by elaborative 
thinking; and this thinking of details into structural unity may be viewed 
either as induction or as deduction, according as the process is intro- 
spectively considered as an apperceptive structure or a vitalizing incre- 
ment. Induction is formal conception; deduction is formal perception. 

References 

Porter, Human Intellect, p. 439 et seq. 

Sully, Human Mind, Vol. I, pp. 459-475. 

Angell, Psychology, pp. 235-255. 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 220-231. 

Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 299-310. 

Baldwin, Elements of Psychology, pp. 216, 221. 

Brooks, Mental Science, p. 273 et seq. 

Calkins, First Book in Psychology, pp. 148-162. 

Gordy, New Psychology, pp. 230-245. 

Murray, Introduction to Psychology, p. 260 et seq. 

Pillsbury, Essentials of Psychology, pp. 228-237. 

Snider, Psychology and the Psychosis, Intellect, pp. 507-512. 

Read, Introductory Psychology, p. 243 et seq. 

48. Knowledge is conscious growth. It is that aspect of human 
life, as revealed in consciousness, which pertains to the enlargement and 
organization of the personal being. Knowledge, or knowing, is the pro- 
gressive realization of self through integrating experiences into the mental 
content. It is active being, a becoming, not a static accumulation. So 
far as it concerns the psychologist, the word "knowledge" may be spelled 
with ing for its final syllable; it is essentially a process, not a product. 
In the last analysis knowledge is the man himself, conscious of himself as 
a growing entity; knowing (or knowledge) is interpreting one's own states 
as they relate to himself. The knower is what he knows; he knows what 
he is. Schelling said, "that only is knowing, when knowing and being 
are the same thing." Knowing is conscious life, progressive being re- 
vealed in consciousness. "To know is to be conscious of the facts of our 



A Syllabus of Psychology 71 

being", as our facts; in knowing we comprehend our own vital movements 
as they contribute to our growth. 

Knowing is not only conscious vital activity, it is consciousness of 
something. Knowing is '' objective consciousness", that is, it is always 
concerned with objects, or "things." The 'Hhing" known may be 
objectified as "an external physical fact" or as "an internal mental 
fact;" but in either case its "thinghood" or "thinginess" consists in 
its being to the knower "a separable or distinguishable object of thought' 
We know "things" as they belong to us, in our world of conscious life. 

It is a common error of naive thinking to regard knowledge as 
something apart from the mind in which it is in some way "contained", 
as the chair is contained in the room. In this way "knowledge" is dis- 
tinguished from "knowing", as a product from the process which pro- 
duces it. It is in this sense that one is said to "acquire knowledge"; 
but it should be noted that knowledge cannot be "taken into the mind" 
ready-made, as a static product. One does not acquire knowledge as he 
acquires sea shells by picking them up along the beach; "acquiring know- 
lege" is developing mind through experience. 

In a somewhat arbitrary way a distinction has been made between 
two kinds of knowledge: "knowledge of acquaintance" and "knowledge 
about", or knowledge that a thing is and knowledge of what it is. This 
classification is most clearly stated in modern Psychology by James, who 
admits, however, that the terms are practically relative. The purpose is 
to discriminate the elaborated forms of meaning in experience from the 
simpler forms of acceptance of the facts. "To know may mean either 
to perceive or apprehend, or to understand or comprehend." In this 
view sense-perception may give acquaintance with the world, but it is 
only in the higher forms of cognition (in judgment and reasoning) that 
we " ascend " to understanding it. This would seem to be an unnecessary 
refinement of classification, since there can be no "acquaintance" except 
through "understanding"; we acquire " knowledge-that " only as it be- 
comes for us "knowledge-what". A person's knowledge is a systematic 
explanation of his world, in its perceptive elements as truly as in its logical 
inferences; it is such an explanation as gives each bit of experience its 
proper place in his life structure. The most elementary forms of per- 
ceptive knowing require explanatory valuation; the growing mind se- 
lects its perceptions through their meanings, and the "that" of knowing is 
possible only in the "what". Ladd says, "Cognition is one living pro- 
cess throughout, and valuable as a distinction of its stages and kinds and 
points of departure may be, there is one essential body of characteristics 
to be recognized as everywhere present." 

A word more may be said regarding the place of knowledge in life. 
In knowledge each person builds his own life, selecting the materials and 



72 A Syllabus of Psychology 

constructing the fabric. The meaning of all life demands continuous re-- 
construction of its substance, and this conscious remaking of self is life. 
All reality of life is knowledge; and each one gives form to his own life 
in his knowledge systems. Bosanquet says, ''Knowledge is the medium 
in which our world, as an interrelated whole, exists for us"; and again, 
"Knowledge is the metal construction of reality." 

References 

Ladd, Philosophy of Knowledge, ad lib. 

Porter, Human Intellect, Index. 

SuUy, Human Mind, Vol. I, pp. 483, 501. 

Ward, Art in Encyclopaedia Britannica, p. 75 et seq. 

Fullerton, System of Metaphynsics, pp. 63-70. 

Montgomery, Philosophical Problems, etc., Index. 

Hamilton, D. H., Autology, p. 279 et seq. 

Lang, Primer of General Method, Contents. 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 81-85, 156-158. 201-204, 210-213. 

Wenzlaff, Mental Man, Index. 

Baillie, Idealistic Construction of Experience, p. 44, et seq. 

Robertson, Elements of General Philosophy, Index. 

Hoffding, Problems of Philosophy, Index. 



A Syllabus of Psychology 73 

Chapter VI — Affection 

49. Affection (more commonly called ''feeling") is the subjective 
aspect of experience as it relates to the experiencing person. It is con- 
sciousness of worth, or the lack of it, in the experience for the life of which 
it is a part. It is distinguished on the one hand from the objective cogni- 
tive content of the experience, and on the other from its active volitional 
expression. It is in feeling that volitional activity and cognitive growth 
become significant in the appreciation or the personal self; feeling is 
subjective valuing of mental states and processes. Since knowing in all 
its forms has objective reference while feeling has reference solely to the 
experiencing person, knowledge and feeling have been distinguished as 
''objective consciousness" and "subjective consciousness". They are 
the outer and inner aspects of conscious life. 

The technical use of the term "feeling" in Psychology to denote the 
inner affective phase of conscious life should be clearly distinguished from 
the common use to denote cognitive touching. Feeling a piece of cloth 
is "active touching", as looking is "active seeing", and listening is "act- 
ive hearing"; they are all cognitive aspects of experience. To know the 
coldness of ice by "feeling" it in contact with the end-organs of tempera- 
ture is a phase of experience clearly distinguishable from the pleasant- 
ness or unpleasantness of its affective valuation. 

50. Experiences are valued by the personal self according to their 
contribution to its development; those that promote life are welcomed and 
enjoyed, while those that interfere with or destroy life are rejected and 
disliked. Every experience is a metabolic process, altering the life struct- 
ure in both its mental and its bodily aspects. If it is anabolic, building 
up the organic structure, it is agreeable; but if it is catabolic, tearing down 
the structure, it is disagreeable. In general, the feeling aspects of 
those experiences that promote life are pleasant, while the feeling aspect of 
those that retard life are unpleasant. Thus, the fundamental classi- 
fication of experiences as "pleasant" and "unpleasant" depends upon 
their subjective significance to the life in thich they occur. Baldwin 
says "Feeling is the sense in the mind that it is itself in some way influenc- 
ed for good or ill by what goes on within it"; and Beaunis (quoted by 
Ribot) says, "Agreeable states are the correlatives of actions which con- 
duce to the well-being or preservation of the individual." 

The affective, or feeling, phase of consciousness is a kind of life 
thermometer, which rises in satisfaction as the experience contributes 
to the life, and falls as the experience detracts from the life. In general, 
the pleasantness of an experience is a valid index to its value in the life; 
and unpleasantness in a normal healthy life indicates objectionable ex- 
perience. Thus, Ebinghause says, "Pleasantness indicates that the 
impressions made upon the organism are adapted to the needs or capaci- 
ties of the organism, or at least to that part of the organism which is 
directly affected; unpleasantness indicates that the impressions are ill 



74 A Syllabus of Psychology 

adapted or harmful." Similarly Murray says, ''Pleasure is the con- 
sciousness arising from the stimulation of a mental state to its normal 
limit, and no further; pain is the consciousness arising from a mental 
state being strained beyond, or restrained within, that limit". While 
this figure of the thermometer refers to the consciousness of the rising 
and falling of the life current, it should not be understood to imply an 
affective "zero-point"; there is no experience that is feelingless. 

A curious lack of scientific precision in analysis of experience is 
shown by many psychologists in their discussion of "pleasure " and " pain ' 
as "forms of feeling". While we may admit that "feeling is practically 
summed up for us in the two mutually related words pleasure and pain, " 
we should not overlook the fact that these two words signify more than 
mere subjective "feeling" of an experience. They each designate mental 
facts in which both a cognitive and an affective phase may be discrimi- 
nated. The cognitive phase of the pain of toothache originates in sens- 
ing the disturbed state of the body mechanism, and it is similar in every 
respect to "knowing" the yellow of a dandelion in the sensation referred 
to the retina. To the critical student of conscious mental events, these 
knowings are equally distinct from their concomitant feelings; and there 
is no more reason for treating "pain" as exclusively feehng than for 
treating "color" so. 

References 

Ladd, Philosophy of Knowledge, pp. 165-166. 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 246-249. 

Titchener, Textbook of Psychology, pp. 225-240, 263. 

Titchener, Psychology of Feeling and Attention, ad lib. 

Ribot, Psychology of the Emotions, pp. 31-32, 49-60. 

Marshall, Consciousness, pp. 497-505. 

Kulpe, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 225-230. 

Stout, Analytical Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 115-122, Vol. II, p. 268 et seq. 

Stout, Manual of Psychology, pp. 210-240. 

Pillsbury, Essentials of Psychology, pp. 258-271. 

Angell, Psychology, p. 256 et seq. 

Ladd, Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory, Index. 

Murray, Introduction to Psychology, p. 371 et seq. 

Hoffding, Outhnes of Psychology, p 221 et seq. ad hb. 

Spencer, Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, p. 473 et seq. 

Yerkes, Introduction to Psychology, Index. 

Royce, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 163-196. 

Davis, Elements of Psychology, pp. 239-257. 

Morgan, Psychology for Teachers, pp. 44-48. 

51. Feelings are commonly classified as "sensuous feelings" and 
"ideational feelings", sometimes called "lower" and "higher" feelings, 
as they accompany "lower" and "higher" forms of cognition. Sensuous 
feelings orginate in sense-perception through body states; they are the 
pleasant-unpleasant valuation of experiences directly connected with 
sensations. Ideational feelings are the affective phases of the higher, 
elaborated cognitions of "emotions" and "sentiments"; they are like 
sensuous feelings in that the satisfaction or dissatisfaction indicates an 
anabolic or catabolic effect of the mental state upon the whole life struct- 
ure. 

Two important sub-olasses of sensuous feelings may be distinguished : 
the first comprises the satisfactions and dissatisfactions accompanying 



A Syllabus of Psychology 75 

sensations localized in definite sense-organs, as in smelling and hearing, 
and the second, the pleasantness and unpleasantnesses accompanying 
cognitions of general bodily states, as weariness, well-being, etc. In 
the first the subjective valuings of experiences are immediately referred 
to '^ organs of special sense"; in the second they are vaguely associated 
with what are called '^ systemic", or ''organic sensations". To 
know weariness and to be aware of the disagreeableness of it are readily 
compared with knowing the odor of a carnation and accepting its pleasant- 
ness. 

In the ''bodily appetites", which are commonly classed as feelings, 
the three aspects of cognitive anticipation, affective valuing, and im- 
pulsive seeking are readily distinguished. An appetite is the hunger of 
the organism for larger life; it includes a sense of lack, an apprehension 
of that which will supply the lack, and the going out in active desire for 
such life material. An appetite is as truly cognitive and volitional as it 
is affective. 

References 

Wenzlaff, Mental Man, pp. 131-135. 

Murray, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 401-403, 404 at seq., 470 et seq. 

Robertson, Elements of Psychology, p. 196. 

Lindner, Empirical Psychology, p. 175 et seq. 

Yerkes, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 173-188. 

Titchener, Textbook of Psychology, p. 473. 

Kulpe, Outlines of Psychology, p. 231. 

Angell, Psychology, pp. 270-271. 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 246-346 ad lib. 

Pillsbury, Essentials of Psychology, p. 246. 

Halleck, Psychology and Psychic Culture, p. 246 et seq. 

Read, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 146-148. 

52. The discussion centering about the "James-Lange Theory of 
Emotions" has contributed much, positively and negatively, to a better 
understanding of the nature of all affective phases of consciousness. This 
view, which finds the origin of the emotion not in the cognitive image 
but in its concomitant body-state, is in striking contrast with the view 
that regards the body-state as the "expression of the emotion". James 
says, "we feel sorry because we cry, angry because we strike, afraid be- 
cause we tremble, and not that we cry, strike, or tremble because we are 
sorry, angry, or fearful, as the case may be." According to this theory 
the affective-state originates in, depends upon, or is caused by the body- 
state, which is itself the immediate result of the cognitive-process; thus, 
as Angell states it, "we never feel afraid unless we have already made 
certain of the motor reactions which characterize fear," and the body- 
states are " not merely expressions, they are rather indispensible causal 
factors producing the psychical condition which we all recognize when 
we experience it as the genuine emotion." According to the older and 
what is still the more common view, the bear is seen, the fear is felt, and 
the body trembles; according to the James-Lange view, the bear is seen 



76 A Syllabus of Psychology 

the body trembles, and the fear is felt, In the one, the feeling of fear 
preceded and causes the trembhng of the body; in the other, the trembling 
of the body with the rising of the hair on the scalp precedes and causes 
the feeling of fear. In the common theory the feeling originates directly 
in knowing the fearful object and the body-state is but the physiological 
accompaniment of the cognitive-affective mental state, while in the 
James Lange theory the feeling of fear springs from the knowledge that 
the body is trembling and the hair ''standing on end, " which state of the 
body is thought to arise directly from knowing the fearful object. Re- 
duced to its lowest terms, the whole question, so vigorously discussed for 
a quarter of a century, is whether the order of procedure in such an ex- 
perience is knowing the bear, feeling the scare, and raising the hair; or 
knowing the bear, raising the hair, and feeling the scare. If it were not 
for certain important implications of these theories, the whole might be 
ignored by the student as a question of ''tweedledum and tweedledee. " 

The heart of James's whole contention is in the claim that the body- 
state is due to the instinctive or reflex reaction of the organism to the 
exte?nal stimulus without the subjective valuing of feeling. He claims 
that the motor reaction in jbhe body structure is feelingless, and that the 
feeling is at most but a consequent index to the changed state of the or- 
ganic structure. He says "My theory is that the bodily changes follow 
directly the perception of the exciting fact, and that our feeling of the 
same changes as they occur is the emotion"; and "The emotion is nothing 
but the feeling of a bodily state, and it has a purely bodily cause. " Stout 
states James's view (which he opposes) thus, "The emotion arises as a 
kind of back-stroke. The primary nervous excitement must overflow 
through efferent nerves, producing changes in the internal organs which in 
their turn give rise to organic sensations. It is the organic sensations thus 
produced which constitute the emotions." This considers the emotion 
the subjective accompaniment of the instinctive reaction to the stimulus 
of certain situations; the stimulus directly arouses the vital reaction 
and the altered state of the body thus produced gives rise to the feeling 
of pleasure or displeasure. 

The important truth lying back of the James theory is that the 
motor activity in response to a situation is essential to the existence of 
feeling. Feeling is a subjective valuing of a life event, as that event -is 
a "motor discharge" in body tissues. To have an emotion one must 
act; or as Dewey puts it, "Feeling is an accompaniment of activity." 
The fundamental error, frequently recurring in both sides of the dis- 
cussion of this theory, is the assumption that there is a temporal causal 
order in the aspects of the experience. It is assumed on the one side that 
there is first cognition, then feeling, and then body change; or on the other 



A Syllabus of Psychology 77 

side, that there is first cognition, second bod}' change, and third feeUng, 
in causally related sequence. The truth, negatively stated, is that 
neither is the feeling a causal antecedent of the body-state nor is the 
body-state a casual antecedent of the feeling. The affective phase of 
the experience, whether '^ lower '* (''sensuous") or '' higher" ''(ideational") 
inheres in the life event on the same level as the cognitive and conative 
phases, and is not in any sense derivative from either of them or from both 
of them combined. The state of the body, the cognitive activity, and 
the affective- appreciation are but distinguishable aspects of a life event; 
and one of them is no more the "effect" of another than the "form" of 
the table is the effect of its "color". 

This discussion of the cause-and-effect order of the aspects of ex- 
perience is a notable example of pseudo-scientific analysis in Psychology. 
An event in a human life cannot be separated into "processes" with 
causal connection and a time order; there is no "body process" with 
which the psychologist has any concern, no "cognitive process" as a 
discrete existence apart from the state of the body and the subjective 
valuing, and no "affective process" of quasi-independent course. ; The 
experience, however complex it may appear in its various aspects, is one 
fact in the field of Psychology, one "process" in consciousness. Psy- 
chological analysis is necessarily an aspecting; it can never be m^vde a 
partitioning. Each science transforms reality for its own purposes, and 
the scientists in any field must determine the vieT\'point and methcd of 
their study. The immediate matter of Psychology is the personal ex- 
perience as given in consciousness; and the analysis demanded for its 
description and explanation gives its sj^nchronous phases. Neither 
general Biology nor Psychology requires such an artificial separation 
into "part-processes" as the contestants on both sides of this contro- 
versy appear to accept. 

References 

Titchener, Textbook of Psychology, pp. 474-489. 

James, Briefer Course in Psychology, pp. 375-390. 

Villa, Contemporary Psychology, pp. 191-200. 

Wundt, Outlines of Psychology, p. 193. 

Ribot, Psychology of the Emotions, pp. 93-97. 

Sully, Human Mind, Vol. II, p. 58. 

Thorndike, Elements of Psychology, pp. 172-173. 

Murray, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 397-401. 

Marshall, Consciousness, pp. 109-111. 

Mitchell, Structure and Growth of the Mind, p. 506 et seq. 

Ladd, Elements of Physiological Psychology, p. 519. 

Wenzlaff, The Mental Man, pp. 120-123. 

Stout, Manual Psychology, pp. 289-297. 

Stout, Groundwork of Psychology, pp. 192-195. 

Angell, Psychology, pp. 316-318. 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 246-346 ad lib. 

Pillsbury, Essentials of Psychology, pp. 273-277. 

53. Two classes of "higher", or Ideational Feelings are commonly 
distinguished: Emotions and Sentiments. These varieties of the affec- 
tive aspect of consciousness are alike in their complexity; they are not 



78 A Syllabus of Psychology 

simple feelings, but are life events and attitudes characterized by domi- -^ 
nant feeling tones. Sentiments differ from emotions in that they are 
relatively more permanent and less intense. Emotions, viewed purely 
as affections, are transient feelings, while sentiments are abiding emotional 
dispositions; emotions are mental complexes characterized by strong 
feelings, while sentiments are somewhat permanent qualities of the per- 
sonal self as it gives appreciative valuation to its experiences. Senti- 
ments are often predispositions to emotions, rising in intensity and cona- 
tive impulse to become emotions; on the other hand, emotional states 
msLj become fixed in sentiments as ''affective dispositions. " 

While this classification of the so-called ''higher feelings" as Emo- 
tions and Sentiments appears to be convenient, if not necessary under the 
loose terminology of Psychology and the demands of popular speech, for 
the description and explanation of psychical processes and events, it 
does not meet the demands of critical science, in that there is no well- 
deflued basis for the distinction and in that it ignores important elements 
in the facts themselves. The difficulty in classifying feelings, "lower" 
and "'higher" alike, i. e., all affective aspects of conscious life, arises from 
confusing the 'cognitive and conative aspects of experience with the affec- 
tive aspect. It is probable that if attention were rigorously directed to 
the subjective valuing of feeling exclusively, the only distinction dis- 
coverable in the whole field would be that of pleasantness and unpleasant- 
ness connected with various intellectual and emotional activities. In the 
investigation of the affective phase of conscious life the psychologists 
appear to lose sight of the peculiar abstraction with which they are deal- 
ing in a loose description of a complex of all aspects of the subject matter. 

54. Emotions are complex mental states characterized by notable 
disturbance of the affective equilibrium. They are prominent affective 
phases of the more elaborated cognitions and impulses. "An emotion" 
as an event in personal life has a discrete unity in which the three phases 
of knowing, feeling, and willing are readily discernible. While it is 
essentially a subjective feeling of satisfaction or dissatisfaction, it origi- 
nates in the cognition of a situation and realizes itself in active impulse. 
The core of the emotion is the idea structure; its meaning is the sub- 
jective valuation; and its form is the active expression. By the very 
etymology of its name, an emotion is an "out-moving"; it is the con- 
scious self moving outward in expression of the satisfaction or dissatis- 
faction of its own state Just as a cognition is a taking in, so an emotion 
is a going out; and it is this going out that makes the emotion so much a 
matter of "body expression". An emotion is always a personal attitude 
toward some object, as to be angry is to be angry with some one, or to 
be sorry is to be sorry for some thing. An emotion is a feeling attendant 
ipon an idea and directed toward some object. 

An emotion arises spontaneously under certain conditions. It runs its 
course briefly, usually growing up to a maximum stage and then as slowly 



79 A Syllabus of Psychology 

declining; or it may grow up to a climax of intensity, and give way sud- 
denly to a reaction, or "revulsion". An emotion may be cultivated in 
its progress to a more rapid or larger growth by the intensifying imagina- 
tion. Emotions grow through expression; and ''the inhibition of ex- 
pression means the death of the emotion". 

Emotion differs from simple pleasure-pain feelings in that they are 
referred to ideas, while feelings are referred to body states. They are 
more complex than the sensuous feelings, since their cognitive concomi- 
tants are more developed. This is easily seen by comparing introspec- 
tivety the unpleasantness of a toothache with the sorrow in learning of 
the death of a friend. They also differ from sensuous feelings in their 
conative impulse; sensuous feelings are subjective valuings of "things 
as they are", while emotions face outward to "things as they should be". 

The definition of an emotion in Baldwin's Dictionary of Philosophy 
and Psychology, for which Stout and Baldwin are jointly responsible, 
is exceptionally good; it recognizes the presence of the cognitive and 
conative elements and places the emphasis justly upon the affective 
aspect of the mental complex. They say, an emotion is "a total state of 
consciousness considered as involving a distinctive feeling-tone and a 
characteristic trend of activity aroused by a certain situation which is 
either perceived or ideally represented". We have recognized here (a) 
a dominant feeling, (b) a trend of activity, and (c) an apprehension of a 
situation. With characteristic clearness Yerkes says, "Our emotions 
are complex experiences made up of cognitive processes, feelings, and' 
volitions. They are classed with feelings simply because in them feelings 
usually are predominantly important". It should however, be noted 
that, while these complex mental states are emphatically affective and 
impulsive in nature, the feelings and impulses originate in the knowledge 
of the situation, and often the cognitive core is the chief thing revealed 
by introspection. 

References 

Stout, Groundwork of Psychology, pp. 188-197. 

Stout, Manual of Psychology, pp. 284-288. 

Baldwin, Elements of Psychology, p. 266 et seq. 

Yerkes, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 177-182. 

Angell, Psychology, pp. 315-339. 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 297-308. 

Calkins, First Book in Psychology, p. 170 et seq. 

Ladd, Primer of Psychology, pp. 175-182. 

Ladd, Outhnes of Descriptive Psychology, pp. 238-239. 

Ladd, Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory, p. 534 et seq. 

Ebinghause, Psychology, (Meyer's trans.), pp. 168-172. 

Kulpe, Outhnes of Psychology, (Titchener's trans.), pp. 320-333. 

Pillsbury, Essentials of Psychology, pp. 272-278. 

Bain, Mental Science, p. 215 et seq. 

55. Numerous schemes have been proposed in the Classification 
of Emotions most of which are lacking in scientific clearness and pre- 
cision. A very common classification is into Egostic Emotions, Altru- 
istic Emotions, and Cosmic Emotions, meaning by egoistic emotions 
those idealistic feelings that center in the welfare of self as distinguished 
from those that have other objective centers, such as joy, content, dis- 



80 A Syllabus of Psychology 

appointment, etc.; by altruistic emotions, those that center in the wel- 
fare of others, either benevolent or malevolent in their impulses, such as 
pity, malice, etc.; by cosmic emotions, those that center in the true, the 
beautiful and the good, as they are appreciatively perceived in the en- 
vironing world, such as delight in the discernment of truth, pleasure in 
the perfection of form, etc„ 

This distinction of ''egoistic", ''altruistic" and "cotoic" emotions 
is worthless in any critical study of the affect've aspect of experience, 
since it depends rather upon the cognitive and volitional aspects. Joy 
and love may differ intrinsically as cognitions and impulses in that they 
respectively pertain to self or others, but as affective aspects of life they 
are alike pleasant. All emotions are essentially subjective valuing from 
our own standpoints, and in a very important sense they are all self- 
centered, or "egoistic". While as an "ideational feeling", or idea-cen- 
tered feeling, every emotion originates in knowledge of some object and 
impulsively seeks the welfare (or ill-fare) of something, strictly as a feel- 
ing it begins and ends with the self. 

Another ingenious classification is based primarily upon the time 
aspect of this cognitive-affective activity. This scheme is logically 
developed somewhat as follows: 

r Immediate X^^^' gladness, content, etc. 

L Sorrow, depression, discontent, etc. 



Emotions I Prospective | H^Pe. courage, etc. 
j ^ [^ Fear, cowardice, etc. 



I Retrospective ||^*'«ff*'°"' self-gratulation, etc. 
L . I^Kegret, reproach, etc. 

Such a classification as this is of interest to the student of Psychology 
only in affording him opportunity to discriminate the peculiar cognitive 
or volitional ingredient in each form of experience that causes it to be 
grouped as of the present, the future, or the past. It certainly has little 
warrant or value in well defined scientific analysis. 

This whole subject of kinds of emotions has been so confused by lack 
of logical basis in classification and strict limitation of the matter in 
hand that it is extremely difficult to determine what groupings are most 
advantageous for the beginner in general Psychology. Probably Titchen- 
er's statement that "there are two kinds of emotions, the pleasant and 
the unpleasant," is the safest, if he and others would but hold to it. 
Pillsbury, after accepting this purely affective basis for classifying 
emotions, says, "Emotions are either pleasant, unpleasant, or, like 
surprise, indifferent." Is surprise truly "indifferent", that is, without 
feeling quality? It is not to be wondered at that a scientist who would 
make such a statement would find; "The outcome of all the historic 
attempts at classification is disappointment." The cause of all this 
confusion is not far to seek : the term emotions is used to designate forms 
of experience in their three aspects of knowledge, feeUng, and action, and 



A Syllabus of Psychology 81 

in the various classifications of these complex mental events the basis 
is at times affective, again conative, and again cognitive. If, as we have 
here done, we define emotions as ^'ideational feelings", to be studied as 
feelings and classified as feelings, ignoring, in the abstraction of scientific 
analysis, the knowing and mlling aspects, there wall be no confusing of 
bases. Emotions, like the lower ''sensuous feelings", are primarily of 
two kinds; pleasant emotions and unpleasant emotions. These two 
fundamental classes may, however, be subdivided on the secondary 
bases of cognitive and conative elements into such subordinate classes 
as will serve the purposes of detailed description. 

When, for example, we call joy an "emotion", the term connotes 
the entire experience with emphasis upon its affective phase. For the 
purpose of our descriptive science, however, we regard it as purely ''a 
feeling." It is a pleasant feeling due to the anabolic assimilation of 
valued life materials in healthful action. In the description and explana- 
tion of experiences scientific analysis deals with the three phases separate- 
ly; and there need be no con'^usion in such study, if we wi^l accept the 
restriction of the abstraction. 

References 

Titchener, Textbook of Psychology, pp. 489-493. 
Calkins, First Book in Psychology, p. 175 et seq. 
Thorndike, Elements of Psychology, pp. 75-81. 
Kulpe, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 322-326. 
Halleck, Psychology and Psychic Culture, pp. 253-272. 
Pillsbury, Essentials of Psychology, p. 278. 
James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. II, p. 454. 
BueU, Essentials of Psychology, p. 190. 
Putnam, Textbook of Psychology, pp. 166-185. 
Robertson, Elements of Psychology, p. 206 et seq. 
Maher, Psychology, pp. 446-449. 
Patrick, Psychology for Teachers, p. 285 et seq. 
Baker, Elementary Psychology, p. 180 et seq. 

56. An apparent antagonism of feeling and knowing has led to 
such fallacious statements in some textbooks on Psychology as, ''We can 
not know intensely and feel or will intensely at the same time; or feel 
intensely and know or will intensely at the same time. " The truth, on 
the contrary, is that feeling quickens thinking and increases volitional 
activity. "Under the stimulus of strong feeling a man will accomplish 
(both in intellection and in executive action) what he would not have 
believed himself capable of performing. " This is not only true when the 
feeling is the natural subjective concomitant of the particular knowing 
process, that is, the appreciative enjoyment of a definite intellectual 
activity, but it is also true at times when a strong feeling tone suffuses 
the whole mind and renders more vigorous all its action, whether related 
to the source of the emotion or not. Are not some of the brilliant passages 
of "Rasselas" due to the fact that Johnson wrote the book "in the even- 
ings of a single week" to pay his mother's funeral expenses? The 



82 A Syllabus of Psychology 

statement that 'Hhe current of thought and the current of feeUng at 
times flow in opposite direction" is due to an erroneous conception of 
the nature of f eehng. The same writer speaks of thinking and f eehng 
as 'Hwo activities to be brought into harmony"! And again he says, 
"Profound thinking may thus overcome and exclude all feeling; or very 
intense feeling may exclude all possibility of connected thinking. " Much 
more of similar tenor might be quoted from various writers of greater 
or less authority in Psychology, all of which reveals very vague concep- 
tions of the nature of emotions and a prevalent lack of scientific analysis 
in the study of conscious experience. The way out of all this confusion 
would appear to be plain enough. If "experiences" are to be studied 
in their three aspects of knowing, feeling, and willing, then when we are 
critically investigating one of these aspects, abstracted from the others 
for that purpose, the others for the time being should be rigorously 
ignored^that is, v>"hen we are describing and explaining the affective 
aspect as "emotion", the cognitive and conative aspects cannot be 
recognized as determining "forms of feeling. " 

Thus, to distinguish "prejudice", "envy" and "ambition" as 
"kinds of emotions" through their cognitive phases is as meaningless 
for the purposes of science as to group bits of ore in the qualitative an- 
alysis of the mineralogist into classes as to their squareness, roundness, 
etc. If the elemental composition is what is considered, that isexclus- 
sively one thing; but if the geometric forms of the lumps are considered, 
that is an entirely irrelevant matter. Both cannot be dealt with 
simultaneously in any true scientific study. Similarly any critical study 
of the affective phase of experience should not be obscured by consider- 
ing concomitant aspects of knowing and willing. 

References 

Gordy, New Psychology, pp. 155-156. 
Halleck, Psychology and Psychic Culture, p. 178. 
Putnam, Textbook of Psychology, p. 147. 
Patiick, Psychology for Teachers, pp. 294-295. 

57. Sentiments are " emotional dispostions " connected with certain 
ideal constructions of what ought to be rather than the more definite 
ideational feelings of what actually is. A sentiment is a prevailing 
emotional tone accompanying a complex form of ideation or judgment, 
a sort of 'general susceptibility to certain kinds of emotions.' Such 
affective phases of conscious life are related to emotions somewhat as 
climate is related to states of weather; they are both permanent back- 
grounds and prevalent forms of manifestation. Stout says, "a senti- 
ment is constituted by the manifold emotions in which it manifests itself;" 
thus, the sentiment of patriotism may be viewed as the totality of emotions 
comprised in a general benevolent attitude toward one's country. While 
the totality of ideational feelings in the sentiment of patriotism is in 
general "well-wishing" toward the countrJ^ the constituent emotions 



A Syllabus of Psychology 83 

have various forms; thus, one's love for his country may be manifested 
in malevolent feelings toward its enemies. To have patriotic sentiment 
one must know his country appreciatively; and just as such knowledge 
may include in its details ideas of something that are not for the country's 
good, so the emotions connected with the ideas of these unfavorable 
facts may be unpleasant. 

A sentiment is an abstraction that is never given in consciousness 
in its entirety. It is a kind of substantial background which may rise 
into emotions of various kinds. Thus Stout correctly says, ^'Such a 
sentiment as friendship cannot be experienced in its totalitj^ at any one 
moment." Sentiments arise out of ideal constructions of thought to 
which no definite objectified situation corresponds, hence they lack in 
individual clearness and intensity. While an emotion may originate 
directly in awareness of a situation, a sentiment depends upon a more 
elaborate and abiding embodiment of thought in character. Sentiments 
doubtless originate in concrete bodil}^ feelings in perceptual experiencing, 
but they develop into relatively permanent subjective tones and atti- 
tudes. As affective phases of consciousness they are less intense than 
emotions, because they are further removed from sensuous feelings. 
The awareness of sentiments appears to be rather the consciousness of 
self in organic character than consciousness of an experiential event in 
the progress of the self. A man's awareness of his sentiment of honest}' 
is certainly not a consciousness of satisfaction or dissatisfaction in a 
particular fact of his life. Viewed exclusively as affections, sentiments 
are subjective valuings of life in its highest levels, the finding of pleasure 
in the greater movements of self-realization. In his sentiments a man 
enjoys his most worthy treasures, either as actually present or anticipated 
in natural growth. 

The student should note here, once more, that the difficulty in dis- 
cussing the nature of sentiments arises from confusing the affections with 
the cognitive and volitional aspects of conscious life. The names of 
the various sentiments designate mental facts in which the three phases 
of feehng, knowing and willing are easily distinguishable in psychological 
analysis. The important thing when studying them as feelings is to 
rigorously exclude from the analysis the other two concomitant aspects 
which are inseparably a part of them and to treat them by abstraction 
as mere feelings. 

References 

Stout, Manual of Psychology,, pp. 575-580. 

Angell, Psychology, p. 336. 

Yerkes, Introduction to Psychology, p. 185. 

Titchener, Textbook of Psychology, pp. 498-500. 

Ladd, Primer of Psychology, p. 182. 

Read, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 267-271. 

Betts, Mind and its Education, pp. 189-192. 



84 A Syllabus of Psychology 

58. Three great classes of sentiments are commonly recognized : 
intellectual sentiments, or ''love of truth"; aesthetic sentiments, or 
''admiration of beauty"; and ethical sentiments, or "reverence for good- 
ness." The basis of this classification is found in the common trich- 
otomy of experience as knowing, feeling and willing. "The true" is 
the perfect in knowing; "the beautiful" is the perfect in feeling; and 
"the good" is the perfect in willing. The sentiments are satisfaction 
in the ideals of perfection in the three great aspects of human Kfe. It is 
in the sentiments that the soul finds its highest forms of subjective ap- 
preciation of its possibilities, valuing its own realities from the three 
points of view of its ideally perfect life. 

Other classes of sentiments have been recognized, such as "religious 
sentiments, " etc.. but there would appear to be no need for such additional 
classes. The so-called "religious sentiments", for example, owe their 
separate grouping to an artificial distinction between "the right" and 
"the good." 

Intellectual Sentiments are eternal satisfaction in right knowing. 
The human mind by its very nature enjoys its own cognitive growth; 
all true knowledge is satisfying. Logicians have distinguished two forms 
of truth: the "truth of fact", or concord of fact with fact; and the "truth 
of conception", or the concord of knowledge with its object. In the last 
analysis these two are the same, and psychologically they are on the 
affective side "the pleasure of knowledge for its own sake". This senti- 
ment, common in some degree to all men, is a passion in some ; it is often 
said that the characteristic fact about the life of John Locke was his 
"love of truth". 

Aesthetic Sentiments are the fundamental agreeableness of the harm- 
ony of sensuous feelings. Intellectual sentiments depend upon the agree- 
ment of a part with complemental parts in the whole of cognitive life; 
aesthetic sentiments depend upon a balanced agreement of all parts in 
a whole, a harmonious blending of all in perfection of form, of sound, etc. 
While this "sentiment of beauty" has its objective cause and hence its 
cognitive sensuous element, it is essentially a feeling of pleasure in the 
subjective state. It is due to sensing the ideal as presented by the imag- 
ination; Hegel defined beauty as "the ideal as it reveals itself to sense", 
and probably no simpler definition of aesthetic sentiment can be given 
than "love of the beautiful". 

Ethical Sentiments are satisfaction in ideal human conduct. Just 
as perfect knowledge gives rise to intellectual sentiment and pefect 
sensuous ideals give rise to aesthetic sentiment, so perfect action in rela- 
tion to others gives rise to ethical sentiment. The science of Ethics 
deals with the ideal in human conduct, that is, with perfection in rational 



A Syllabus of Psychology 85 

action in the social world; and the ethical sentiment is the pleasure 
which springs from contemplation of such constructive participation 
in the lives of others. The moral sentiment gives "worthiness" to con- 
duct as possible self-realization. 

It is an error to identify ethical sentiment with "conscience", as 
that term is used in the science of Ethics. Ethical sentiment is merely- 
the feeling of satisfaction in ideal conduct, while conscience is essentially 
an impulse to such conduct. There is no more "feeling of obligation" 
in ethical sentiment than in intellectual sentiment or aesthetic sentiment. 
One is "impelled" to perfect knowledge as he is to perfect feeling and to 
perfect doing, but this impulsion is clearly distinguishable from the mere 
agreeableness of such knowing, feeling, or doing. While the sentiments 
as given in conscious experience are all inseparably connected with know- 
ing and doing, they are in the abstraction of scientific analysis exclu- 
sively affective in character. 

References 

Titchener, Textbook of Psycholog}', pp. 500-503. 

Read, Introductory Psychology, pp. 267-268. 

Ladd, Primer of Psychology, pp. 183-189. 

Bald^an, Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, Vol. II, p. 521. 

59. There are certain terms relating to affective aspects of experi- 
ence, used loosely in common speech and in troublesome confusion in 
scientific description, that demand brief explanation. Such are "mood' ', 
^temperament", "disposition", "passion", etc. 

Moods are somewhat prolonged emotional states of exhileration or 
depression. While a mood is in general but a continuous emotion, it 
differs from a true emotion both in its weaker affective quality and its 
lack of a definite object or occasion. It resembles a sentiment in that 
it is a prevailing predisposition to a class of emotions. Moods may shift 
from general satisfaction to general dissatisfaction with life's experiences; 
and persons in whom such changing states are quite pronounced are said 
to be "moody". 

"A Temperament is a mood that is permanent". It is a fixed 
emotional character, an "affective congenital constitution" which gives 
character to all of life's ideational feehngs. It is a life-long predisposi 
tion to one kind of moods, just as moods are periodic predispositions to 
kinds of emotions. Four such temperamental characters, or "tempers", 
have long been distinguished: "sanguine", "choleric", "melancholic", 
and "phlegmatic". 

A Disposition, like a temperament, is an abiding characteristic, 
dependent, commonly, upon inherited organic structure. It differs 



86 A Syllabus of Psychology 

from a temperament in stressing the will more than the feelings. The 
commonly recognized forms are ".energetic", ''sluggish", ''excitable", 
etc. 

Passions are "strong, uncontrolled emotional dispositions," They 
are intense and relatively permanent emotional states, differing from 
emotions on the one side in that they are more abiding, and from temper- 
aments on the other in that they are more intense and more specifically 
directed. One may have "a passion for gambling", "a passion for 
flowers", etc. 

References 

Pillsbury, Essentials of Psychologj, pp. 281-282. 
Titcbener, Textbook of Psychology, pp. 497-498. 
Ladd, Primer of Psychology, p. 210 et seq. 
Yerkes, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 182-183. 
Angell, Psychology, p. 335. 
Putnam, Textbook of Psychology, pp. 162-163. 



A Syllabus of Psychology 87 

Chapter VII — Conation 

60. Willing is the active aspect of conscious experience. It is 
the third phase of a mental life event, coordinate with knowing as con- 
scious growth and feeling as conscious valuing. In modern Psychology 
the term conation has largely taken the place of the term willing, or 'Svill" 
to designate the whole activity of a living organism conceived as depend- 
ent upon its spontaneity. The new term, however, includes much that 
does not come properly within the field of Psychology. The active 
striving for life by plants, as well as by all forms of animal organisms, 
is ''conation" (conor, to strive) ; but there is a distinct gain to Psychology 
in restricting the term ''will" to conscious effort. Even in this limited 
use of the word two meanings may be distingished : broadly, it includes 
all mental action as given in consciousness, whether "impulsive" or 
" dehberative " ; and in the narrow^est sense, it designates "the settle- 
ment by the self of a psychic issue" in true "volition". 

As an aspect of vital activity wilHng should be clearly distinguished 
from concomitant movements of the body, either massic or molecular. 
It is strictly "mental activity"; it is not space-conditioned, and its "pro- 
cesses" do not involve change of place. The movements, or "motions", 
in the fabric of tissues or in the relative locations of the body organs are 
matters of Physiology, to be described and explained in terms of cause and 
effect in a world of matter; on the other hand, the mental process willing 
is given only in the field of consciousness, cannot be explained in terms 
of cause and effect, and is to be dealt with strictly by the introspective 
observation of Psychology. Just as extension in space is essential to 
matter, so conative activity is essential to mind; and this conative ac- 
tivity is given in consciousness as "willing". There is no more univer- 
sally attested fact of human life than that mind is directly aware of its 
activity as the ultimate form of its self-realization. Critical introspective 
examination of experiences in the Psychological laboratory reveals the 
active aspect of all mental events. "In all sensuous perception, in all 
thought and feeling, there is some activity on the part of the individual. ' ' 
— Hoffding. Will is the energy of a personal self manifesting itself in 
consciousness; and there can be no will-less, or strictly passive conscious 
existence. 

The refusal of some leading psychologists to recognize the ^^dll as 
"a third conscious element coordinate with cognition and affection" is 
due principally to a philosophical bias regarding the nature of mind 
One who persistently refuses to entertain the conception of an integral 
personal self, spontaneously active and creative of life energy, naturall}'' 
discovers in his introspective study of an experience only forms of object- 
seeking knowledge and subjective-valuing feelings; but he who recognizes 



88 A Syllabus of Psychology 

in the coherent unity of a personal hfe the structural realization of a 
self -active entity discerns just as clearly the conative aspect of each 
bit of conscious life. Here as elsewhere in science the student discovers 
most readily what he seeks, and the working hypothesis limits the field 
of perceptible facts. 

References 

Dewej', Psychology, p. 347 et seq. 
Betts, Mind and its Education, pp. 226-227. 
Pillsbury, Essentials of Psychology, pp. 308-309. 
Calkins, First Book in Psychology, p. 216 et seq. 
Ladd, Primer of Psychology, p. 194 et seq. 
Royce, Outlines of Psychology, Index. 
Patrick, Psycholog}^ for Teachers, p. 298 et seq. 

61. The impulse is the simple will element. It is in its impulses 
that the self -active mind takes its initial steps toward self-completion 
by conquest of its environment. The dynamic tendency of the impulse 
originates in a sense of incompleteness; it is an appetency for completer 
life. Originating in a feeling of unstable equilibrium in the present 
state and in a contrast of the possible with the actual, the impulse seeks 
to complete existing life. Impulses are the primordial manifestations 
of conscious life; James says, "Consciousness is in its very nature im- 
pulsive." Just as the kigher forms of will in ''choice" and "purpose" 
are active expressions of desires for things believed to be attainable, so 
the impulses express sanguine expectations. Purpose is but a higher 
rational form of impulse. 

"Impulsive action" is commonly contrasted with "deliberative 
action" as lacking in definite cognition of its end; thus an impulse is de- 
fined as "a dynamic tendency of mind to act toward its environment 
without deliberation ". Similarly in Baldwin's Dictionary of Philosophy 
and Psychology an impulse is defined as "a conation in so far as it oper- 
ates through its intrinsic strength, independently of the general system 
of mental life." In this view impulse differs from choice only in its 
relative simplicity; and rational growth, in purposed action, consists 
in bringing constructive order into life's impulses. It is in this way that 
Sull}^ treats impulses as "those inate promptings of activity in which 
there is no clear representation of a pleasure, and consequently no dis- 
tinct desire." 

The conception of the impulse presented here postulates the essential 
activity of the mind. It accepts as a patent fact the unity of the in- 
dividual human life. Without such an unqualified admission of the 
existence of self-activity in the human organism there is no consistent 
Psychology. Spontaneity is the ultimate fact of sentient life, whether 
examined in the field of general Biology or in the more limited field of 
Psychology ; and impulses are discrete forms of spontaneous action, freed 
from complex motives. 



A Syllabus of Psychology 89 

The "sense of effort", which is characteristic in varying degrees 
of all vital activity, vague and evanescent in the simplest impulses, be- 
comes quite pronounced in the more complex forms of purposed action. 
While it is doubtless due in part at least to the inert resistance of the body 
mechanism to concomitant changes with the mental processes, intro- 
spective observation indicates that it has not purely such a negative 
origin. As an invariable accompaniment of the highest forms of active 
attention it is certainly not painful or unpleasant as the feeling of resist- 
ance to free life would be. The unsatisfactory attempts to explain the 
feeling of effort as due to obstruction of life activity probably show a 
wrong working hypothesis; life is more than the resistance of death, 
and mental determination will probably admit of an affirmative naturahs- 
tic explanation. The highest sense of effort is in the exhilaration of 
selfdetermined growth. 

References 

Angell, Psychology, pp. 310-314, 

HaUeck, Psychology and Psychic Culture, Index. 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 347-358. 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. II, p. 526. 

Kulpe, OutHnes of Psychology, Index. 

Patrick, Psychology for Teachers, p. 34. 

Lindner, Empirical Psychology, pp. 224-226. 

62. Attention is intensified and cognitively directed consciousness. 
Ladd says,'' Attention is a process of selective focusing of psychic energy". 
It is essentially an integrating movement of self-organization. Mental 
life at any moment is a continuum, in which centers of interest are cease- 
lessly shifting in a more or less complete structural organization At- 
tention selects the centers and emphasizes their importance for a longer 
or shorter interval. It brings into clearness and prominence some bit 
of mental content and thus unifies mind in selective cognition. In em- 
phasizing a bit of mental life attention increases feeling as well as know- 
ing; it renders cognition clearer and affection stronger. 

While strictly we attend to mental facts only, centering life in them, 
we commonly speak of "attending to the external object" which gives 
rise to the conscious state; thus we speak of attending to the warmth of 
the stove, when strictly we attend to the conscious state originating in 
the sensing of such physical heat movement. Much confusion arises, 
even with our leading psychologists, in treating attention as a matter of 
knowing the external world objectively, rather than a focusing of mind 
in its own content. Attention is a form of will which gives relative 
clearness and intensity to mental content, whether such content is viewed 
as directly related to some object or not. In attending to itself in 
definite centers the mind knows and feels more actively. 

It is common to distinguish "involuntary attention" from "vol- 
untary attention". When the focus of one's consciousness suddenly 
shifts through some accidental disturbance of the life movement, as the 
bite of a mosquito, we say "he attends involuntarily", or "because he 
could not help it". In this so-called involuntary attention, the mere 



90 A Syllabus of Psychology 

force of the stimulus is thought to ^'compel the attention"; on the other 
hand, in voluntary attention the mind selects unforced from its content 
its center of interest. In voluntary attention there is commonly 
a sense of effort in. the choice, while in involuntary attention such feeling- 
is wholly lacking. The term '^involuntary attention" means merely 
non- voluntary attention, not attention against the will. 

Designating a form of attention in which the sense of effort is lack- 
ing or not readily discernible as "involuntary attention" is unfortunate 
for the purposes of exact science. Attention is will, that is, it is in all 
its forms activity, self-determined and voluntary. All consciousness 
is active, even when most diffuse and unorganized, and it centers itself 
actively whether dehberatively or impulsively. It is a curious blunder 
CO call this 'involuntary attention" "spontaneous attention"; all mental 
action is spontaneous. Similarly attention has been called "voluntary 
consciousness " ; but all consciousness is voluntary. Much of this attempt 
to distinguish two kinds of attention is a mere matter of degree, and the 
terms are useless and misleading. 

Interest is the feeling that some fact in one's consciousness is im- 
portant to the whole self. It fixes the attention in a definite center of 
the conscious continuum. It is thus a sense of personal concern in a 
distinct psychosis. What is called "interest" on the subjective side 
becomes "attention" in object- seeking cognition; interest and attention 
are strictly but two aspects of the one mental fact. Stout says, "Atten- 
tion is interest determining cognitive processes"; and Baldwin defines 
interest as "the impulse to attend". Considered strictly as an affective 
phase of experience, interest is satisfaction in anticipated growth. The 
etymology of the word {inter -esse) suggests that the object of interest 
is between an actual state of the self and a possible completer state; the 
interesting fact is felt to be in the pathway of natural self-realization, to 
be an increment in a larger selfhood. It must, however, be noted that 
"interest in an object" does not depend upon the nature of the object 
as such, but upon the nature and state of the mind to which the object 
is presented. As a subjective valuing of a fact of conscious experience, 
interest is an uncompelled personal matter. It is never merely a passive 
state of feeling due to a situation; it is "positively active, self-expressive, 
self-assertive." — Angell. 

The difficulty apparent in this discussion of interest is the common 
one of all Psychology, namely, the attempt to separate the feeling of 
interest from the cognition and conation of attention. The term always 
designates more than mere subjective appreciation; it connotes cognitive 
and conative striving. 

References 

Calkins, First Book in Psychology, pp. 93-103. 
Ladd, Primer of Psychology pp. 23-31. 
Titchener, Textbook of Psychology, Index. 



A Syllabus of Psychology 91 

Halleck, Psychology and Psychic Culture, Index. 

James, Talks to Teachers on Psychology, p. 100 et seq. 

James, Briefer Course in Psychology, Index. 

Stout, Analytical Psychology, Index. 

Yerkes, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 292-299. 

Angell, ^Psychology, Index. 

Pillsbury, Essentials of Psychology, p. 104 et seq. 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 132-148. 

Stout, Manual of Psychology, Index. 

Royce, Outlines of Psychology, Index. 

Betts, Mind and its Education, Index. 

63. Choice is preferential action in view of motives. It is definite 
decision of mental issues in a final resolution of what is held in suspense 
in deliberation. As executive fiat it commits the self in a preference of 
a selected object. Choice is self-disposition in relation to cognized ob- 
jects; it is active self-determination, essentially a fact of will to which the 
preceding deliberation involving cognition and affection is but a prelude. 

Motives are the conscious facts considered in the deliberations lead- 
ing to choice. In choice one motive finally becomes the germinant center 
of the will act, and other motives that have been similarly important in 
various tentative partial choices in the course of the preceding delibera- 
tions drop from consciousness. The etymology of the word motive 
{moveo, to move) may be misleading; thus, it is inaccurately stated that 
"motives move the will". A motive is not to be regarded as a deter- 
mining force objectively distinct from one's self; it is one's self in ideas 
and feelings. Choice is not '^ yielding to motives"; while it involves 
motives, it is superior to them in the same way that the growing plant 
is superior to the food elements in the soil and air in which it lives. At 
most, motives furnish the occasion, not the cause, of the choice. 

Deliberation is a comparative valuing of possible centers of exper- 
ience. Stout regards it as "a state of unstable equilibrium" in which 
*'the mind oscillates between alternatives". Deliberation proceeds by 
many partial choices of motives, until decision cuts short the process in 
a dominant final choice. ''Deliberation is a series of judgments or active 
imagings that precede selective and volitional action" (Titchener). In 
the final choice one judgment is rendered victorious by a decisive execu- 
tive fiat. In the deliberative process one conative tendency is relatively 
superior, then another, and so on, until one greater movement sweeps all 
to a final conclusion. In Baldwin's Dictionary of Philosophy it is said 
that "Deliberation is the comparison of alternative courses which per- 
cede and issue in choice". The determining consideration in this com- 
parison is the prospective values of such courses to the self as a whole. 
In deliberation there is cognition of possible actions and a feeling of open 
alternatives which choice resolves into the acceptance of one action 



92 A Syllabus of Psychology 

with a feeling of satisfaction in a temporarily completed self. It is on 
account of the cognition of the alternative courses of action in deliberation 
that it is called ''the intellectual factor of will". 

Decision is the termination of deliberative choice. In it the mind 
puts the stamp of selective approval upon a particular conscious fact. 
It denotes the completion of a process of mental construction, which we 
commonly describe by the declaration ''my mind is made up". In de- 
cision the mind passes "from a state of suspense to a state of resolution". 
It terminates "a struggle of motives" by an executive fiat. It is the 
overt act of choice. Betts says, "Decision consists in mentally agreeing 
to attend to the images suggesting the accepted line of action and shutting 
from mind those opposed to it ". It is the mind as a whole that " decides' ^ 
it is not a mastery by an over- strong contending factor in a disorganized 
arena. Decision is the typical will act. 

To form any consistent conception of the nature of choice one must 
hypostatize the existence of a unified mental entity realizing itself in 
various psychoses, yet superior to them all. Whatever may be thought 
to be the requirements of modern Psychology as a positive science of 
mental phenomena, it gains nothing and loses much by the attempt to 
dissolve integral personality into a mere "stream of processes". Neither 
philosophical abstractions nor introspective analysis of concrete mental 
events justifies such a view. On the other hand, the student will find 
a most productive working hypothesis in the idea of a self active personal 
will. 

A good example of choice for repeated introspective study is found 
in the buying of fruit at a f^uit stand on the sidewalk of a city. Note 
critically the mental facts in considering the varieties of the fruit as it 
is spread out in tempting array, in recognizing different claims of de- 
sirableness, in limiting the purchase to one kind of fruit, in making the 
selection. 

References 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. II, pp. 528-535. 
Dewe3% Psychology, pp. 365-368. 
Stout, Manual of Psychology, pp. 585-595. 
Baker, Elementary Psychology, pp. 210-212. 
Ladd, Primer of Psychology, pp. 199-203. 

64. Execution is the carrying into effect in organic bodily activity 
of the decision of the will. This term implies a misunderstanding of the 
nature of will activity. Willing is not merely initiative action originat- 
ing body movements which subsequently continue as effects; it is sus- 
tained activity characterizing the whole movement. A will decision is 
continuous throughout the whole body execution; as when I will to raise 
my hand from the table, I not only will the beginning of the movement,, 
but I will it all the way up. Willing is not prior deciding what to do; 
it is doing viewed as mental activity. What one wills he is doing, and 



A Syllabus of Psychology 93 

his doing ceases with his willing. Willing is self-determined living and 
is continuous throughout the whole life movement. Conscious life is a 
succession of will acts, a progressive manifestation of the personal self. 

The term '^ resolution" is sometimes used in Psycholog}^ to denote 
decision to do what is not immediately done; as, when one resolves to 
"write that letter after dinner". Bain says it ''indicates the situation 
of having ceased to deliberate without having begun to act. " The error 
here, for a little critical study of the facts will show that it is an error, 
is the separating of a discrete fiat deciding an issue from the progressive 
will movement of the growing life of which the particular decisive action 
is but a momentary phase. Willing is progressively accomplishing re- 
sults, it is the effective phase of life, as distinguished from feeling as the 
affective phase. The ''purpose" of will is achieved in the purposing. 
To resolve to do is to do, so far as the life has then progressed; subsequent 
doing is subsequent willing. Anticipated action is already a fact so far 
as life has gone; and the material embodiment is progressive purposing 
seen from the sida of the body mechanism. It is impossible to separate 
the psychosis of will from the neurosis of body movement. 

65. The question of "the freedom of the will " has been the center 
of endless philosophical and theological controversy. As students of 
Psychology we are concerned here with the facts as revealed in introspec- 
tive observation. We leave to the theologians the reconcihng of these 
facts with a priori speculations as to the nature of man in his relation to 
his Creator. Likewise we refuse to be biased by philosophical theories 
of causation that would include mental entities in a closed circuit of 
transformable unincreasable forces. In all the centuries of discussion 
two theories, or rather groups of theories of varying forms, have been 
distinguished; "necessity" and "free will". Necessity, or "determinism" 
regards the will in terms of cause and effect, in a mechanical universe 
whose whole explanation is summed up in the "conservation of energy". 
Free-will, or "libertarianism", regards willing as the spontaneous, un- 
caused activity of a free autonomous personality. While the idea of 
freedom is involved in any rational conception of the will, it does not 
mean "transcendental freedom" of arbitrary action. By "freedom of 
the will" we understand natural mental activity spontaneously origi- 
nated; and the evidence of the existence of such freedom is overwhelm- 
ingly conclusive in any unbiased observation of the facts of rational 
human life. Strict "determinism" and strict " trancendental freedom" 
are alike psychological absurdities. 

To explain the espression "I will" demands a recognition of the 
unified entity designated by the word "I" and an equal recognition of 



94 A Syllabus of Psychology 

the uncaused activity expressed by the word "will". These are patent 
facts both in the naive consciousness of the uncritical and in the strictest 
scientific examination of the forms and elements of human life. There 
is no more indisputable fact of mind than willing, and willing has no 
meaning in a mechanical universe. The will is both the beginning and 
the ending of all psychoses; to will is to live. 

References 

Ladd, Primer of Psychology, p. 205. 

Putnam, Textbook of Psychology, pp. 224-226. 

Baker, Elementary Psychology, p. 218. 

Stout, Manual of Psychology, p. 589 et seq. 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. II, p. 569 et seq. 



A Syllabus of Psychology 95 

Questions and Problems. 

1. Define Psychology as a chapter in Biology. 

2. How does the "New Psychology" differ from the "Old Ps}^- 
chology"? 

3. Does a person "always do what he wants to do"? 

4. Try creating an emotion by acting it out in body expression in 
accordance with the James-Lange theory. 

5. Is "somid" a physical fact or a mental fact? 

6. What would mental life be without memory? 

7. Close your eyes and bring together the little fingers of your hands, 
noting in which touch is first perceived or is more definite ; test repeatedly 
to see whether you can will the cognition in either finger as you choose; 
note again what effect results when one hand remains stationary and the 
other is brought to it. 

8. Can a person at will so far annul consciousness as to "think of 
nothing"? Try it. 

9. Explain the statement that, "Psychology is a genetic study of 
human nature." 

10. Can you discover any evidences of synaesthesia in your sensing 
of the material environment? 

11. Clear the table in front of you of all objects; close your eyes 
and then have some one place an unexpected object on the table; open 
your eyes and note critically how you "know the object". 

12. Criticise the use of the word "passive" in such expressions as 
"passive attention", "passive imagination," etc. 

13. What is the meaning of the statement that "an apperceptive 
mass is a thought system"? 

14. What is "Child Study"; is it strictly a division of Psychology? 

15. What was the fundamental conception in Phrenology? 

16. When occasion accidentally offers, note your attitude toward 
an unrecognized sound. 

17. What is the meaning of the statement that "the world is my 
idea"? 

18. Why should memory improve with age; or why decline? 

19. Where in your body do you "feel that you are" when you at- 
tempt to localize yourself? 

20. How does one awaken at a previously determined unusual hour? 

21. What is the psychological distinction between "work" and 
"play"? 

22. Tap lightlj^ on the floor with a cane or slender rod, noting in- 
trospectively whether the sense of touching is referred to where the 
cane touches the hand or to the point of contact of the cane with the floor. 

23. Is mind involved in sneezing? 

24. Can a person form a habit "against his will"? 

25. How does jerking the hand back from a hot stove differ from 
bowing to an acquaintance on the street? 

26. What is a mind? 

27. Can you have a general concept without a name? 

28. Does my interest in an object depend upon the object or upon 
me? 



96 A Syllabus of Psychology 

29. Can you discover in your daily experiences any process of habit 
forming? 

30. Observe introspectively how you estimate the time without 
looking at your watch. 

31. Try measuring ''contentless time" by sitting before a clock 
whose tick you cannot hear and closing you eyes for just a minute. Can 
you observe introspectively any feeling of stress of attention? 

32. Explain "blushing" psychologically. 

33. What is sleep; and why are brief noonday naps good for efficient 
work? 

34. Could one train himself to a rhythm of prolonged awake periods 
with relativel}^ briefer rest periods, say to sleeping everj^ third night? 

35. Give three different formal syllogistic statements of the thinking 
in buying an apple from a train boy. 

36. What is a "beautiful life"? 

37. Can you justify psychologically the teaching of a "language art ", 
such as penmanship or spelling, by formal drill? 

38. Why can you hear the sound of approaching footsteps sooner 
wheii you are expectantly listening for them than when you are not 
watching for the approaching person? 

39. What is a "thing" as a "mental construct"? 

40. What is the psychological explanation of lef thandedness ; and 
are there valid theoretical reasons for cultivating ambidexterity in children 

41. Do we remember feelings, or only their cognitive concomitants? 

42. Image vividly a bright yellow dandelion in the grass by the 
side of the walk; image similarly a strain of music; an odor; a taste; a 
touch. 

43. Is the name "instinct", as applied to certain tendencies without 
conscious purpose, merely "a term to conceal ignorance" of the real 
nature of such mental activity? 

44. Justify psychologically returning a pupil's papers to him with 
some markings to show his degree of success. 

45. What does a person commonly mean when he says "I have such 
a poor memory"? 

46. Explain psychologically the nature and function of a teaching 
question. 

47. Distinguish between "illusions" and "delusions"; and give 
examples. 

48. Imagine the inhabitance of Mars with spherical bodies (legless 
and armless, without protruberances of any kind) rolling about from 
point to point in business and pleasure, noting critically your experience 
content in its development. 

49. Distinguish between color ignorance, color weakness, and color 
blindness. 

50. What is "faculty psychology"? 

51. Is there rational meaning in the statement that "bodily fatigue 
causes mental fatigue"? 

52. What are dreams? 

53. What is insanity? 

54. Show that the terms "subliminal personality" and "uncon- 
scious self' " are unwarranted and misleading. 



A Syllabus of Psychology 97 

55. Explain psychologically the statement that ''one never knows 
a truth until he expresses it". 

56. Trace psychologically the formation of a general concept, or 
''universal", such as the concept of "grape fruit". 

57. Is there such a thing as a "latent idea" or "latent feelings"? 

58. Explain the statement that "teachers do not create interest, 
they merely direct it". 

59. Recall by persistent vigorous effort your "train of thought" 
through a preceding period, say ten minutes; and see what linkages of 
"association" appear to predominate in the shifting of idea centers. 

60. Estimate the height of a window sill from the floor, and note 
introspectively the sense of effort; also the filling of the "empty space" 
with intermediate points. 

61. What do you understand by "sub-conscious attention to stimuli " 

62. How does a blow on the head make one "see stars"? 

63. Is "drilling" to "fix in memory " a rational method of teaching? 

64. Why can we not remember when awake the mental constructions 
of dreamless sleep? 

65. Explain psychologically the nature of a "concrete problem" as 
used in teaching. 

66. How do you account for the painful "start" — drawing or quiv- 
ering of the body — when you witness another falling on a hard pavement ?- 

67. Compare psychologically novel-reading by adults and "playing- 
mother" by children. 

68. If there were no oblivion of forgetfulness into which unimpor- 
tant details of experience are dropped, would retrospection be possible? 

69. Explain the nature of "the blues", as designating a state of 
mental depression, 

70. Can you feel the stress of attention as a well defined will activity 
when you force yourself to follow the thought on an uninteresting speakeJ? 

71. Discriminate for several successive evenings the colors in the 
sunset sky, naming them as far as you can; and note any growth dis- 
cernible in sense perception. 

72. Experiment with touch after-images, touching your forehead 
with a pencil; can you create the touch sensation in a spot one minute 
after you have touched that spot, or without touching it at all? 

73. Explain the effect upon character of constantly stimulating the 
emotions by the reading of fiction. 

74. Show that interest is subjectively a feeling of value and object- 
ively a dynamic seeking of an object. 

75. Read through aloud the following linkage of words in pairs, 
reading but once and noting introspectively the shock and the pleased 
acceptance of each new association; repeat from memory noting attitude 
of hesitancy or certainty of each transition to another term : Courthouse — 
jail, jail — barred windows, barred windows — iron, iron — cannon, cannon — 
fort, fort — Fortress Monroe, Fortress Monroe — Chesapeake Bay, Chesa- 
peake Bay — oysters, oysters — ^winter, winter — ice, ice — skating. 

76. How does a "dream" experience differ from a normal experience 
of the awake life? 

77. How do you insure your remembering of a fact that you need 
shortly to have in mind? 



98 A Syllabus of Psychology 

78. "Why is it that a hidden drawing in a 'puzzle picture' is so 
difficult to see at first and so difficult not to see when you have once 
found it? 

79. Why do we not have a gamut of odors similar to our gamut of 
tones and our gamut of colors? • 

80. Is there a philosophically valid distinction between " physical 
facts-" and "mental facts"? 

81. What do you understand by the statement "he lost conscious- 
ness"? 

82. Discuss critically the physiological theory of "afferent" and 
"efferent" nerves. 

83. Find instances of heredity within your own observaton; can 
the facts be accounted for on the grounds of post-natal imitation in the 
environment? 

84. What is Eugenics? 

85. Discuss biologically the proposition that "children are naturally 
good". 

86. Is the statement of Bibot that "We study psychical variations 
indirectly by the aid of physical variations that can be studied directly" 
the whole truth? 

87. Contrast psychologically the educational value of calisthenic 
exercises with rationally encouraged and directed free play. 

88. Can you justify psychologically the statement that "you cannot 
get a child to attend to anything that has no interest for him"? 

89. What is the "static sense"? 

90. Explain "mental staring", as when in any situation one makes 
no effort to interpret his sensations. 

91. Show that the growth of knowledge depends upon "concepts"; 
and explain the statement that "intellectual development is a process 
of de-synonimization. " 

92. How do you explain the fact that the experiences of childhood 
are remembered better in old age than the experiences of middle life? 

93. How does "a change of stiumulus give rest"? 

94. Do we ever have an absolutely new experience in substance and 
form? 

95. Can you account for the readiness with which one forgets facts 
crammed for examination after the examination is over? 

96. Is the statement that "very young children do not reason" 
justified in your own observation of child life? 

97. Does the term "cause" properly designate the concomitant 
relation of states of mind and body? 

98. Can you readily recall (in image) the detailed structure of the 
face of a friend; of a stalk of corn? 

99. Compare the general theory of evolution as "progressive ceation " 
by an "immanent God" with the theory that a person creates his own 
organic structure by "progressive functioning". 

100. Is educability heredity? 

101. Does a bird anticipate the laying of eggs when it is building a 
nest? 

102. Why does a man do his best constructive work late in life — say 
after sixty? 



A Syllabus of Psychology 99 

103. How do you account for the sense of ' been-here-before' in what 
you know positively to be a new experience? 

104. Is it probable that new sense organs will be developed in the 
human race? 

105. What is the psychological meaning of the ''born short" doc- 
trine? 

106. Do sensations have "extent"? (''The red quality of a peony 
is larger, more extended than the same quality in a rose". — Titchener, 
Outline of Psychology, p. 37) 

107. If as a hypothesis of science it were desirable to select one of 
the three fundamental apects or functions of the mind (knowing, feeling, 
willing) as the primitive form out of which the others were differentiated 
in a natural process of growth, which would you select? 



100 



A Syllabus of Psychology 



Index 



Abnormal psychology 25 

Abstraction 61 

Active character of experience 27 

Aesthetics 23 

Aesthetic sentiments 83 

Affection 73 

Agreeableness 73 

Altruistic emotions 80 

Anabohc body processes 73 

Analysis in psychology 13 

Animal psychology 17 

Antagonism of feeling and knowing 81 

Apperception 58 

Apperception and perception . . . .59 

Apperceptive masses 59 

Aristotle's dichotomy .33 

Aristotle's Experiment 50 

Art products in psychology 17 

Association, laws of 54 

Attention 89 

Attention and interest 90 

Auditory sensations 40 

Auxiliary methods in psychology 15 

Biology 23 

Body and mind 29 

Body, function of 30 

Body-mind organism 29 

CataboHc body processes 73 

Causation, not in psychic facts 91 

Cause and effect, law of 54 

Centrally-aroused sensations 44 

ChHd Study 16 

Choice 91 

Cognition, aspects of 37 

Cognition, essentially conscious 35 

Cognition, nature of 34 

Cognitive growth 34 

Collective psychology 24 

Comparative psychology 25 

Comparison 61 

Conation 87 

Concept 60 

Conception 60 

Conscience 85 



Consciousness 14 

Contiguity, law of ". 54 

Cosmic emotions 80 

Creative imagination 63 

Decision 92 

Deductive reasoning 68 

Deductive syllogism 68 

Dehberation 91 

Deliberative action 88 

Denomination of a concept 60 

Determinism 93 

Direct observation of mental facts 15 

Disagreeableness 73 

Dispositions 85 

Double-aspect theory 31 

DuaHstic view 49 

Educational psychology. 25 

Effort, sense of 89 

Egoistic emotions 79 

Elaborative cognition 58 

Emotions 78 

Emotions, classification of 79 

Emotions contrasted with simple 

feelings 79 

Epistemology 23 

Ethical sentiments 83 

Ethics 23 

Events in conscious life 13 

Execution 92 

Experience 27 

Experimental psychology 18 

"Experimenter" and "assistant" 19 

Experiments in psychology, scope, of. ...20 

Extension of a concept 62 

Eye-mindedness of the human race 40 

Fancy 64 

Feehng 73 

"Feehng", as active touching 73 

Feelings classified 74 

Field of psychology 22 

Forgetting 55 

"Freedom of the will" 93 

Functional psychology 25 



A Syllabus of Psychology 



101 



''Future" 57 

General concept 60 

Generalization 61 

General psychology 24 

Genetic psychology 25 

Growth of mind 34 

' 'Has-been" character of a memory — 56 

History 23 

Human life studied in psychology 22 

Ideahzing imagination 63 

Ideational f eehngs 74 

Illusory perceptions 50 

Image 52 

Imagination 62 

Imagination and conception 63 

Imagination and memory 63 

Imagination, forms of . . . .• 63 

Impulse 88 

Impulsive action 88 

Indirect observation of mental facts ... . 16 

" Individual facts " of psychology 12 

Individual psychology , 25 

Inductive reasoning 69 

Inductive syllogism 69 

Infant psychology 24 

Inferential study of mind 15 

Insane mind, how studied 17 

Intellectual sentiments 83 

Intensifying imagination 63 

Intension of a concept 62 

Interaction of mind and body 31 

Interest 90 

Interest and attention 90 

Introspection 13 

Intuition 39 

Involuntary attention 89 

James-Lange theory 75 

Judgment 66 

Judgment as concept defining 65 

Knowledge 70 

Knowledge, identity with self 35 

' ' Knowledge that ' ' and ' ' knowledge 

what" 71 

Knowledge not "contained in" mind.. 72 

Knowing an "external object" 35 

Knowing, feehng and wilHng aspects... . 32 
Knowing process 35 



Laboratory study in psychology 20 

Language in thinking 61 

"Laws of association" 54 

Libertarian theory of will 93 

Life a stream of experiences 11 

Localizing in memory 56 

LocaHzing sensations 43 

"Local signs" 43 

Logic 23 

Lower and higher feehngs 74 

Material of psychology 11 

Mathematical psychology an impossi- 

• bility 42 

Measm-ement of mental facts 42 

Memory an experience 52 

Memory as mental connective tissue . . .52 

Memory, elements of 53 

Memory image 52 

Metabohc body processes 73 

Method in science 10 

Method of psychology 13 

Mind a continuum 11 

Mind and body 29 

Mind, views of 11 

Monistic theory of hfe 49 

Moods 85 

Motives 91 

Necessitarian theory of will 93 

Nervous mechanism and mind 40 

"New psychology" and "old 

psychology" 26 

Observation of conscious facts 14 

Observation alters facts observed 15 

Observation under controlled condi- ... 

tions 19 

Organic sensations 40 

"Outer world" of perception 48 

"Over-individual facts " of physics 12 

Pain 74 

Parallelism of mind and body 31 

Passions 86 

Passive imagination 64 

"Past" 57 

Pedagogy 24 

Perception a constructive process .... 49 

Perception and sensation .47 

Perception iUusory 50 

Perception, nature of 46 



102 



A Syllabus of Psychology 



Personal life the subject of psychology ... 9 

Phases of conscious experience 32 

Phonism 44 

Photism 44 

Physical facts over-individual 12 

Physics 23 

Physiological psychology '26 

Physiology 23 

Pleasantness 73 

Predication in judgment 66 

"Present" 57 

Presentative cognition 37 

Procession of experiences in a life 28 

Psychiatry 25 

Psychical facts individual 12 

Psychical facts not measurable 42 

Psychological analysis 13 

Psychological laboratory 20 

Psychology a new science 13 

Psychology a science 10 

Psychology defined 9 

Psychology, kinds of 24 

Psychology, methods of 13 

Psychology, subject matter of 11 

Psychopathology 43 

Psycho-physics 43 

Psychotherapy 25 

Purpose 88 

Qualitative character of psychical facts. .42 
Quantity of sensations 42 

Race psychology 25 

Rational psychology 25 

Reasoning as purposive thinking ....... 67 

Reasoning, forms of 67 

Reasoning, nature of 67 

Recalling in memory 35 

Recognizing in memory 56 

Recollection 55 

Redintigration, law of 55 

Representative cognition 51 

Resolution 92 

Retaining in memory 53 

Retrospective introspection 14 

Reviving a past experience 54 

Rhythm in measuring time 57 

Science, method in ; . 10 

Science, psychology a 11 

Sciences do not overlap 22 



Science transforms reality 15 

"Seeing ghosts" 50 

Selfhood 56 

Sensation continuum 36 

Sensation, nature of 37 

Sensation, produced at will 47 

Sensation, quantity of 42 

Sensation, threshold of 41 

Sensation, Titchener's definition of 39 

Sensations, Hyslop's classification of ... 44 

Sensations, kinds of 39 

Sensations, what they are 38 

"Sense of effort" 89 

Sense organs 39 

Sensuous feelings 74 

Sentiments 82 

Sentiments, kinds of 84 

Similarity, law of 54 

Social psychology 25 

Soul as subject of psychology 9 

Special psychology 24 

Spontaneity 88 

Stimulus to sensation 42 

Stream of consciousness 29 

Structural psychology 25 

Subject-object problem 14 

Syllogism 69 

Synaesthesia -44 

Temperaments 85 

Terms of a syllogism 69 

"Things" and "ideas" 48 

Thinking 71 

Threshold of sensation 41 

Time, ''a general view of events" 57 

Time, as "past", "present", and .... 

"future" 57 

"Transcendental freedom" of the will .93 

Unpleasantness 73 

Universals 60 

Visual sensations 39 

Vital union of mind and body 31 

Voluntary attention 89 

"Weber-Fechner Law" 42 

Will 87 

Will, freedom of 93 

Willing 87 

Will to live ■ 94 



MAY 28 1913 



